PARK DOGS IN LOS ANGELES
Research conducted by Elizabeth J. Terrien

Over the last several months I've been conducting fieldwork in Los Angeles city parks.
The below pictures are from one city park located in South Central Los Angeles.

This park has proven fruitful in that I've been able to consistently observe the two
American Pit Bull Terrier types shown in the first picture below and the community's
reaction (or non-reaction) to them, along with the variety of other dogs that come
and go through their park.

Meantime, the city continues to work around the dogs in this particular park and is only
occasionally forced to deal with the stray dogs. Types and levels of pressure placed on
city officials (police, animal control, park officials, politicians) to address dogs in city parks
varies by community. For example, some communities consistently pressure city officials
to provide a local dog park, while other communities intermittently pressure city officials to
remove stray dogs from their local park. It seems that the two types of pressure rarely
occur in the same community area.

Black male Pit Bull and brown female Pit Bull lounge under palm trees in late Spring
while man bikes by paying no attention to them.

Black Pit lounging on a hot summer day.

Brown female Pit with a stifle gash in early summer.

Brown female Pit just a few days later scavenging for food from around a park trashcan.

Homeless man napping with a white female canine who is in heat.

Brown female Pit rebuffing the advances of a mid-summer suitor.

Two roosters tethered together by the leg in Autumn with, surprisingly, no dogs in sight.

Homeless man trying to wake his dog Butch with little success, since Butch seems content to sleep.