Off-leash dogs. A child bitten. Feces on the grass. Toronto schools are at their ‘wit’s end’

The hand-drawn pictures of smiling pooches, dogs that resemble Holstein cows, and piles of poop all have red lines drawn across them. If the intent isn’t clear, let the Grade 1 students of Rawlinson Community School spell it out for you: “this is not a plas for Dogs.”

Some children surrounded their pictures with small hearts, perhaps to soften the contentious — but factually accurate — message that is routinely delivered in Toronto District School Board signage, and now in crayon and marker. This school in St. Clair West Village is an oasis of green space in a neighbourhood with very little. Some dog owners say there is nowhere close by where their dogs can play. So they come here. But it is not a dog park.

Last Thursday, the signs were taped to the fence. The following evening, a student was attacked by an off-leash dog in the yard. A post in the neighbourhood Facebook group appealed for witnesses, noting that nobody helped the boy, who had to be rushed for emergency plastic surgery on his lip. Toronto police confirmed a 14-year-old boy was “bit by an unaccompanied dog” in the park and taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Their investigation is ongoing.

In Toronto, off-leash dogs are allowed only in specified areas, and schoolyards are not on the list.

Earlier this week, Rawlinson’s principal, Lorelei Eccleston, wrote that off-leash dogs in the schoolyard pose a potential threat to children and adults: “I would like to urge all families to exercise extreme caution when in the vicinity of the schoolyard outside of school hours.”

On a breezy May evening, Denise Drabkin walks her dog outside the school. Percy is part pug, part Boston terrier, with a “smidgen of Italian greyhound,” she says. “We call him the world’s slowest greyhound.” Percy is an old dog, with flecks of white on his snout, and one eye on his small face, the other lost to diabetes complications. As he sniffs the school fence, the retired librarian talks about the attack. Everyone in the neighbourhood knows.

“When something like that happens, it’s so awful because of the stress and the trauma that parents are now feeling,” she says. “Who wants to take your kid somewhere where they could get bitten? Nobody. If you’re going to have a dog, you’ve got to take responsibility seriously.”

Drabkin sticks to the sidewalks and doesn’t go on school grounds, unless it’s pouring rain. In the spring, she picks up dog droppings that appear in the melt. She doesn’t want people stepping in it, and she doesn’t want dog owners getting a bad name, she says, snapping open a small green bag for Percy’s latest event.

“Unfortunately, there are irresponsible dog owners,” she says.

Inside the schoolyard, Shari Shaw, the co-chair of the school council, and Alexis Dawson, the trustee for Davenport and Spadina—Fort York, sit on a bench. School is done, but children are everywhere, playing baseball, climbing the play structure, learning how to ride their bikes. Both women have children at this school, and both are well versed in the dog debate. People regularly walk their dogs off-leash and there have been other incidents. A woman was recently bitten near the school while carrying her child, they say. Dawson says the family of the boy who was attacked on Friday want their privacy. She is speaking on their behalf following the “absolutely horrible” incident.

With the exception of a small parkette, Rawlinson is the only green space within a 1.2-kilometre radius of the school, she says. The closest off-leash dog parks are at Cedarvale Ravine or Earlscourt Park, which are each a 25-minute walk. They understand why dogs come here, but it’s something the city needs to figure out. Toronto has a lot of dogs, and there is value in spaces where they can run free, Dawson says.

“I was saying that to our planning team today, when we look at building new schools, how are we planning for the dog population to descend on the school grounds?” she says.

A few weeks ago, they met with Davenport Coun. Alejandra Bravo to talk about the dog issue at Rawlinson. Bravo and Dawson donated their old election signs so students can repurpose them into dog signs. They are creating a leaflet to pass out, and they are also exploring whether city bylaw officers might have jurisdiction to enforce off-leash rules. Traditionally, the city doesn’t patrol school grounds, but the school signed a community access agreement, and Dawson hopes that might offer a way in. A spokesperson with the city noted that the city is currently in talks regarding enforcement of off-leash dogs at Rawlinson Community School.

“It’s a severe lack of green space. We get it,” Shaw says. “It’s not that I want to completely take away their green space, but we need to make it safe, and this is not a safe thing right now.”

People are mostly left to handle the issue on their own. Shaw regularly asks people to leash their dogs. Some do it happily, others grudgingly, and a few get angry.

“I don’t engage,” she says. “I simply ask them to do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

As we talk, dogs arrive at the schoolyard. At first, they are leashed — but as the baseball practice winds down, a few leashes drop to the grass.

Shaw stops to chat with a couple of women.

“Can you actually put your leash on your dog, please,” she asks.

“Sure,” says the dog owner, looking around the schoolyard. “Yeah, there’s people here.”

It’s a polite exchange, and afterward, the woman says there is nowhere nearby for dogs to play, a sentiment echoed by many who would like to have a dog park closer to home, or figure out a way to safely share this space. Cedarvale is great, she says, but it’s dominated by large dogs. She talks with a few of the other dog owners who have gathered. They are horrified by the attack on the boy. “That gives everybody a bad name, doesn’t it?” one woman says.

TDSB trustee Michelle Aarts, who represents Beaches—East York, says many parents are fed up with this issue. Malvern Collegiate Institute had to “pour a lot of money into field repair” because the space became a popular dog stomping ground during the early days of the pandemic. “It was full of holes, full of poop,” she says, adding that there is no budget for this work. That money is being “taken away from children and education.”

Last fall, a child at Williamson Road Public School’s after-care program, in the Beaches, was bitten by a dog and required stitches, she says. Concerned parents wrote a letter to the local newspaper. “Dog owners, we know you love your dogs,” it read. “Regardless, dogs do not belong in schoolyards explicitly designated for children. It does not matter if your dog is friendly, old, a puppy, calm, or has incredible recall: your dog is not welcome at our school.”

TDSB has “limited ability” to fund security. There is a small team that gives warnings and doles out enforceable fines. Staff can also call police if an off-leash dog appears dangerous or threatening, as can the public. Sometimes, that’s the only way to “get a solution” with a “really problematic person with a dog.”

Data from Toronto Animal Services shows that complaints about off-leash dogs have been steady since 2014 at around 500 a year. Complaints about dogs biting humans have doubled since 2014, spiking at 1,316 in 2022.

Aarts says there are many responsible dog owners who walk their children to school with the family dog, and they don’t want to alienate those families. But when there are people who choose not to follow the rules — again and again — schools don’t really have a choice.

“A lot of schools are at their wit’s end,” she says.

Katie Daubs is a Toronto Star journalist and senior writer based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @kdaubs