dogs and building bridges in Darebin Parklands

Penny stayed at home today while her humans went down to her favorite spot - Darebin Parklands, our wonderful urban bushland area.

We weren't there literally to build bridges; we were actually planting native flora, as we've done before. But, given the distressing argument that's still going on, about the future of off-lead dog-walking in this area, the day was also an exercise in bridge-building.

If you were to look at this picture, you would see a community co-operating to achieve wonderful outcomes for the future.



However, amongst the people working alongside each other there were very different viewpoints about the future of the Parklands.

Some want dogs limited to an area that I consider inadequate and destined to cause enormous conflicts. They think dogs are a danger to the habitat values they've worked for over the years.

Others believe this is an unreasonable reaction to the presence of off-lead dogs in the park and want a wider-ranging area for off -lead walking.

All too often I've heard the saddest word of all used in this argument. The word is they.

In my opinion there's only one word that really counts - we. We all love this area with a passion and that passion is the fire that keeps us all fighting to see out viewpoint win.

But when the decision-making process is finally complete and our local councils hand down a ruling, it will be time to work together, as we did today, to continue to protect this wonderful open space for our future and that of generations to come.

origin of the dog name fido

Penny was named after the copper coin that is no longer in circulation in Australia. It took three of us a nice long hotel dinner and a lubricating bottle of wine to come up with this name, based on the fact that she was a red-head when she was six weeks old.

Now we think she's a strawberry blonde, but we still love her name. And we don't make blonde jokes about her - well, not when she's listening.

Newspaper editors seem to love using the name Fido as a a short-cut in headlines about dogs.. But I've never actually met a dog called Fido. Except for the giant sculpture near Fairfield railway station in Melbourne.

I stood near that statue some weeks ago handing out leaflets to promote discussion about the pros and cons of dog off-lead areas in our local parklands and I got to wondering why it's called Fido. Turns out it stands for Fairfield Industrial Dog Object! Seems it was erected in 2000 to represent the dog-loving community. Well, if the latest plan to restrict dog off-lead walking in Darebin is any indication of the Council's attitude to dogs, then I think they should re-name it. But that's another story...

Back to Fido as a name. As far as I can discover, the most famous dog of this name was Abraham Lincoln's dog.

I take a more in-depth look at this name in my new blog about the fascinating language that surrounds us and helps us make sense of our world.