Pet owner appeals for offlead parks

By Tania Martin
OLINDA resident Helen Holliday is urging the Shire of Yarra Ranges to introduce an offlead area for dogs after her beloved Labradoodle was hit by a road grader recently.
On Monday, 26 September at 7.30am, Ms Holliday was walking her dogs Frank and Emma at the Olinda Recreation Reserve on OlindaMonbulk Road, where they usually had a run with other dogs.
However, this day was different as Frank heard a noise coming down the road and went to investigate.
Ms Halliday said Frank ran in front of a passing grader and was killed.
She said it was a misty morning and the grader driver probably didn’t even know that he had hit Frank.
“I know he should have been on a lead, but being a big dog, Frank needed somewhere to run and he always stayed within the confines of the reserve,” she said.
Ms Holliday and other people in the dogwalking community are putting together a petition to present to the council for an offlead dog park.
Shire community relations manager James Martin said that the council has a total of 20 offlead dog areas.
He said the closest area to Olinda is the John Hill Reserve in Kallista and the Kalorama Memorial Reserve (west oval), Kalorama.
Ms Holliday said having an offlead area in Kalorama or Kallista doesn’t really help the dog walking community of Olinda.
However, Mr Martin said it was a fairly complex process to have an area designated offlead, requiring a formal request and extensive community consultation, as not everyone is keen to have dogs running around off the lead.