Are Cemeteries the New Dog Parks?

When I was feeling blue as a kid my grandparents would ask, "What's the matter, did someone dance on your grave?"

Nowadays--thanks to off-leash dog walkers frequenting cemeteries--the phrase could be, "Did a dog poo on your grave?"

And that's the very question that Concord, New Hampshire lawmakers addressed last summer when they passed a city ordinance banning dogs--both off leash and on--from the city's 13 public cemeteries.

The issue of dogs running through a cemetery, off-leash, became a public rallying cry when a former mayor wrote an opinion piece last spring for the local newspaper describing dog waste lying next to gravestones in the city's cemeteries.

Cemetery as Dog Run: A Grave Issue

Concord isn't the only city that has enacted ordinances in recent years prohibiting off-leash exercise in cemeteries. Rochester, NY also has an ordinance, according to Clare Mosher, clerk at Mt. Hope Cemetery.

"City code does prohibit off-leash play in cemeteries," says Mosher. "When people allow their dogs to roam off-leash, it is not only disrespectful, but illegal."

However, unlike Concord's ordinance, which bans all dogs from cemeteries, Mosher says that since cemeteries fall under the auspice of a park in Rochester, walkers with leashed dogs that stay on the roads or walkways are "tolerated."

Over My Dead Body

Some early U.S. Congressmen might be rolling over in their graves, but the staff at Washington Parish Burial Grounds, better known as Congressional Cemetery in Washington D.C., have a different take on allowing dogs to roam the grounds of the final resting place of more than 60,000 souls.

"Dog walkers really saved this cemetery," says Terri Maxfield, office manager at Congressional Cemetery. "Before they came along, it was abandoned and overgrown with some bad people hanging out here."

The cemetery, founded in 1807, became the final resting place for congressmen who died while serving in Washington. "If they were a Congressman from across the country, prior to about 1870 and embalming, they couldn't take the body home," says Maxfield. The cemetery doesn't have any affiliation with the federal government, but did become known as Congressional Cemetery.

Approximately two decades ago, dog walkers letting their canines roam off leash in the area got together and started taxing each other. The money was used for maintaining the grounds, Maxfield explains. "Bad people don't care for dogs, so they also stopped coming around."

Pets Bring the Cemetery to Life

Congressional Cemetery now has a legion of 485 families that give a $200 membership donation, with an additional $50 per dog donation to allow their dogs to run off leash on the grounds. The per-family dog limit is three and the total dog cap on membership is 600, says Maxfield.

The $145,000 dog walkers pay in fees covers nearly all of the grounds keeping fees each year on the 35 acre cemetery, and accounts for about one-third of the organization's budget, according to the website.

The Association for the Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery oversees the cemetery. Maxfield says it is a very active place that still sells plots and holds funerals. "It is a very alive place," says Maxfield. "There are always people on the grounds, it is more like the original intent of cemeteries, which were very park-like places where people walked and even had picnics, a very active spot in the neighborhood."

Maxfield says that more than 90 percent of their members are very responsible. She says dog walkers pick up after their 4-legged kids and also have poop patrols watching out for everyone else.

"Part of their membership is doing at least 12 hours of volunteer work doing archives, construction, computer work, whatever needs to be done, so they're very helpful and very much needed," says Maxfield.

Maxfield says she's heard about the recent ordinances banning dog walkers in other cities and it saddens her, as dog walkers have been so beneficial to Congressional Cemetery. "I don't know of anyone else doing what we're doing, but I hope they check us out, it's worked really well for us."