Magpie Lawn

Wilma the Wonder Lab gets to go walkies twice a day. Although you can't call it "walkies", because she gets so excited, jumping around & making weird doggie noises you can't actually get her lead on her & it defeats the purpose. Sure, you can open the front door but then she goes ballistic bouncing around the front garden & she won't come back to you because she knows she's going to get clipped up. Catch 22...

Usually T does the morning shift, weekdays anyhow. Up at 6.30 (I get to sleep in till 7), I hear Wilma going ballistic downstairs because in the mornings, you don't even have to mention the word. She just knows that's the first thing that's going to happen. Then the front door slams (I'll fix that one day) and they're off. I say usually T does the morning shift, but the last couple of weeks, for various reasons, I've had to do the honours a couple of days. The Botanic Gardens are always beautiful, whatever the weather. And there is usually something interesting, whether it's half a tree that's fallen onto the track during the night, or like the other morning, when the ambience was assaulted by a raucous squawking that could be heard for miles, and way in the distance (now my eyes are set to distance following cataract removal), I could see a huge cockatoo perched at the top of one of the massive pines overlooking Thorndon. It was just like the Sydney Bot Gardens, minus the bats, opera house & indeed, the Australians. One night a few years ago I came across a particularly comical host of elves, dwarves, hobbits & wizards, who were I think, attending some sort of theme party at the Skyline. they spooked Wilma a bit.

I have to say, I prefer the evening shift, not only is there less of a hurry to get back & ready for work, but usually there are more doggy pals for Wilma to play with when we get to Magpie Lawn. She leads a motley pack in a wild chase around the lawn. I think Hairy MacLary comes there a lot of evenings.

But back to the mornings... I pretty much keep Wilma on a lead, as stated by the Botanic Garden Rules (Rule 1: Keep dogs on a lead & remove all faeces. Rule 2: Do NOT talk about Fight Club. Etc). But not all dog owners do. To be fair, their dogs are probably a lot less likely to go haring off into the distance chasing ducks, than Wilma is. But the danger is that you'll get caught by one of the gardeners & given a good ticking off, or even worse... a ticket for flouting the local dog control laws. Fines are HUGE!. One gardener is particularly zealous. The rest of them are pretty much "Just doing my job sorry." Some mornings you can see errant dog owners peering over bushes while trying desperately to rein in little Rex or Rover, before the gardener down the hill notices. It's kind of funny, these are adults.

I don't actually know anyone who's been fined, but there are plenty of 2nd hand rumours.

Anyway, local dog owners are pretty responsible. We ramble all over the gardens & then usually up to Magpie Lawn, where, if there are no picnickers (there usually aren't by the time I get there, even at the height of summer. Except maybe in the weekends), the dogs get a bit of a run & a chance to socialise. Wilma loves it. She often plays with a mad little Staffy, a couple of golden retrievers, who are the Laurel & Hardy of the dog world, and whoever else turns up on a given evening, recently a very young labradoodle has started coming down, he is very cute, like an ewok. But I ask you, who would own, or own up to owning, a labradoodle? Sometimes no-one turns up & Wilma is very dissappointed. Or a boxer called Honey turns up & Wilma hates her for some inexplicable reason. That's no fun.

Magpie Lawn, if you don't know it, is one of the larger flat spots in the garden. It's also in one of the remoter areas & aside from the odd jogger or walker, pretty much only visited by dog owners. In summer, there might be picnickers, and on one notable occasion I came across the commemorative unveiling of a park bench, attended by 20-30 friends & family of Timothy Cranfield, who died at a far too early age from leukaemia several years ago. That night I wobbled home drunk in charge of a dog.

But mostly the lawn is used by garden staff as a dumping area for compost, mulch, branches, felled trees, old park benches & rubbish. In winter the lawn is criss-crossed with tractor tracks & like a bog.

Oddly, there are no magpies, but there are an increasing number of tui, and recently a pair of kereru seem to have taken up residence.

Last year, when the City Council was reviewing the dog control by-laws, every registered dog owner received an invitation to make a submission on a number of issues, including the possible designation of the lawn as a bona fide (bone fido?) dog exercise area. There was much discussion about this on the dog walking circuit. I think everyone made a written submission at least, welcoming the proposal, and suggesting that if there were any concerns, we'd be perfectly happy if time restrictions were set (say between 6-8am & 6-8pm, weekdays).

A lot of submissions were received. Hundreds. Only 8 were against the lawn being redesignated. The owner of Laurel & Hardy made a 26 page submission, with photos attached. He also made an oral submission & fielded questions from the council committee, they seemed pretty positive about the prospect round the table.

Although not so positive when they weren't in session... I went down to support the submissions & got talking to one of the councillors there. She told me she thought if the lawn was turned over to dog owners, there'd be nowhere else for picnickers to go. I asked her if she'd ever actually been to the gardens if that's what she thought, and suggested that picnickers might actually prefer to go to the Dell, the Soundshell, the Rose Garden, the PICNIC tables at the playground, or indeed, pretty much anywhere else in the gardens rather that spread their picnic out over the tractor ruts & compost piles.

Councillors don't appreciate this sort of comment it turns out (this councillor was not re-elected as it happens, and I thought that was a minor victory for local democracy. We deserve better than ill-informed representatives who have made up their minds before the democratic process takes place.)

Anyhow, the proposal was declined. The council doesn't publish its reasons for making decisions, minutes of the meeting are available on the web, but they're quite uninformative. A little investigation & a few inquiries indicate that the reasons had something to do with the lack of alternative picnic facilities... although somewhere along the way, it was noted that there has never been a canine incident in the gardens, and that the gardeners have noticed that the place has been pretty much dog-poo free for the last several years.

So we lost out there. Pity. But there's always the next review to look forward to. Meanwhile, us responsible dog owners keep our pooches on leads, pick up the poo & we never, EVER, talk about Fight Club.