It’s been a difficult few weeks for the area’s dogs.

Last month, Sullivan County Sheriff’s Deputies and the Town of Mamakating Animal Control Officer arrested two Wurtsboro residents for animal cruelty of two emaciated dogs, one of whom was left inside during that horrible January cold wave.

Last week, we were interviewing a family that was fundraising for their dog Bandit who was suffering from an intestinal blockage with a terrifyingly mundane cause – he had swallowed the squeaker from a toy. During the writing process, for a story meant to highlight the fundraising efforts, Bandit died of the blockage.

In Marbletown, on February 17, a propane explosion took the lives of two of a family’s six dogs. And in Rosendale, on February 19, a dog fell through ice and was lost under the current in the Rondout.

Please take care out there. Winter is a dangerous season and many of our pets need a little extra help.

Meanwhile, in Marbletown, a debate is raging about what to do with the town’s off-leash dogs. Town Supervisor Rich Parete has been moving forward with a law to ban off-leash dogs in all their parks.

The debate is really about Marbletown Meadows, the new park with a two-mile loop that’s perfect for dogs to run through. It was not conceived as an off-leash park, but word-of-mouth among dog owners made it popular. Anecdotally, almost every time we from the Journal have been there, we’ve seen an off-leash dog, and they all have looked thrilled romping through the beautiful loop.

Parete says a minority of dog owners have caused enough problems that the fun times have to be over. He alleged that a child had been bit by an off-leash dog in the park and, when the owners fled, “the poor kid had to get rabies shots.”

As a result, the town has passed a law restricting all town parks to on-leash dogs. A number of dog-owning residents were disappointed.

“It was like a godsend to us. We’ve made so many new lovely friends,” Marbletown dog owner Steve Klein said earlier this month.

“The amount of joy that radiates from an off-leash romping dog far exceeds what you can give to a leashed dog,” Keegan Thompson echoed. “It radiates into the owner of the dog.”

This is also a concern in Wawarsing, where the Parks and Recreation Department and COFFE are trying to push forward with a plan to finally build a dog park. It’s advanced and retreated several times under concerns about location and price. It now seems that the Shawangunk Golf Course is under consideration, marking the third space to be explored.

This Marbletown situation is one of those frustrating instances of a careless, irresponsible minority souring something that should have been pretty simple. If your dog can’t be trusted off leash, don’t put them in a bad situation. It’s not fair to the dog, and it’s definitely not fair to the people who are trying to enjoy the park.

Parete and the Marbletown board, who have handled this situation with level heads, have said they would be open to considering options. They’ve mentioned opening an off-leash location elsewhere in the town, or exploring the idea of off-leash hours for the Meadows.

We hope this law isn’t the end of the story here. As one of the dog owners pointed out, it seems crazy that cities like New York and Boston could find space for off-leash dogs, but not rural Marbletown. And, on the other hand, space for people who aren’t comfortable enough with dogs to be around them off-leash.

We encourage Parete, the board, and the dog owners to keep talking. Marbletown is big. There seems to be a lot of room to find a place for dogs, humans, and everything else.