Via Facebook.

Within a day of the small “No Dogs Allowed” signs and padlocks appearing earlier this week on a fenced-in area at the Bruce Monroe Community Garden, neighbors had already organized. More than 60 people have since joined the Facebook campaign to “save the dog run.”

The only problem: it was never meant to be a dog park to begin with.

With few options in the immediate area, neighbors had been taking their canine companions to the fenced-in area for many years, unaware or disregarding that it is officially a storm water management area for the nearby community garden. And they want back in.

Hence the pictures of sad dogs staring forlornly at the gate. Sad Alaska. Sad Shorty. Sad Cali.

“My dog comes here twice a day and is always extremely excited. This is absolutely terrible news,” writes Jacob Hensley.

“We demand that city officials re open the dog run and we maintain that it was closed under false and potentially illegal premises,” organizer Dave Bobeck wrote on the page galvanizing neighbors. “Like any movement we need to make our motives clear.”

According to the Department of Parks and Recreation, though, nothing untoward happened; they were merely enforcing longstanding rules. “It’s become a kind of de facto dog park,” DPR spokesman John Stokes conceded. “But that was never meant to be a dog park. The neighbors just turned it into one. There’s a whole process at DPR for getting a dog park.”

While some of the community gardeners seem to have complained to DPR, others weighed in on the Facebook group to say that they didn’t have a problem with the frolicking pets.

Stokes said DPR is planning to talk to the local ANC and Councilmember Brianne Nadeau and have some meetings to look at “how best to resolve the issue.” But for now, he says, “it is not a legitimate dog park.”

He added that it wasn’t the sad dog pictures or the drama that did it, though: “Whether it’s a whole bunch, or one, we take every concern or comment very seriously.”