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The Brooklyn Paper / Graham Letorney

Marry Morris (left) with Jacki Lyden and her dog Snowball enjoy off-leash hours in Prospect Park.

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Will Rover no longer be able to live up to his name during those lazy afternoons in Prospect Park?

A politically savvy group of dog owners seems to think so. For the past few mornings, members of FIDO (Fellowship in the Interest of Dogs and their Owners) have been out in force in Prospect Park to collect signatures and encourage opposition to a city law that no longer allow dogs to run free after 5 pm.

The loss of those afternoon off-leash hours is an unintended consquence of a city decision to enshrine into law off-leash hours after a Queens group sued on the grounds that the city’s off-leash “courtesy hours” violated the existing Health Code.

But the new city law — which allows dogs to chase balls, sticks and each other from 9 pm to 9 am every day — does not include an exemption for Prospect Park’s Nethermead, where dogs have (wink, wink) been allowed to roam free every day after 5 pm.

And that has dog owners — who only recently were whistling with joy — barking mad.

“The 9-to-9 deal came out of the initial informal agreement,” said Bob Marino, head of NYCdog, a consortium of dog-owner groups. “It’s easy to say, ‘9 to 9,’ but there is no reason for those to be the hours. We would prefer that the hours be assigned on a park-by-park basis, and where it is appropriate, we would like to see flexibility.”

But the Parks Department, which must be feeling that no good deed goes unpunished, said it was sticking by the 9-to-9 rule.

“We are willing to have discussions with dog-owner groups, but this is the law,” said agency spokesman Phil Abramson. “There are no more negotiations.”

Eugene Patron, a spokesman for the Prospect Park Alliance, said the quasi-private park-maintenance group “will comply with the city rule,” though he quickly added, “We have not had any problems with the extra afternoon hours at the Nethermead.”

Dog owners are apt to be very reluctant to give up any off-leash hours. Experts say that dogs behave better when they can socialize and play off-leash. A dog who runs and plays is a happier, less-aggressive dog, such experts say.

That explains why FIDO was able to quickly collect 500 signatures in support of the 5 pm off-leash hours, said the group’s president, Mary McInerney.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper