An advocacy group for dog owners is asking its members to step up the pressure on the Deschutes National Forest because of concerns that access to off-leash trails west of Bend could be restricted.

The group DogPAC takes issue with the Forest Service’s plans for an area known as Good Dog!, an informal network of trails bounded by the Deschutes River and Century Drive and between the Entrada Lodge and the Widgi Creek Golf Club. DogPAC board chairman Kreg Lindberg said the area has become very important to local dog owners since the Forest Service adopted seasonal leash requirements for the Deschutes River Trail in 2007, effectively eliminating all other locations for off-leash water play close to Bend.

The trail system is within the boundaries of the Forest Service’s 26,000-acre West Bend Project, which calls for a combination of thinning, prescribed burning, brush mowing and commercial logging to reduce the risk of fire.

Kevin Larkin, District Ranger for the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District, said work near Good Dog! is set to begin next spring and will likely include some short-term trail closures ranging from a few hours for mowing projects to a couple months for more intensive logging.

Lindberg said while the Forest Service has not explicitly stated a desire to eliminate trails as part of the West Bend Project, it hasn’t reassured dog owners the trails will stay in place either. He said the agency’s position is similar to the position the Forest Service took during the early days of the Phil’s Trail network of mountain bike trails.

As is the case with Good Dog!, many of the trails in the Phil’s Trail network were unofficial, created without Forest Service permission by the region’s mountain biking pioneers. The Forest Service threatened to block off and shut down the unauthorized trails, Lindberg said, and only relented when the community balked.

Lindberg said he and other dog owners could likely go along with the closure of some trails at Good Dog! but want assurance they will still have trail access to the river once the West Bend Project is complete.

“My proposal is that if the Forest Service is not going to obliterate trails and double-track in that area, that they put that in writing,” he said.

Jean Nelson-Dean, spokeswoman for the Deschutes National Forest, said closing user-created trails in the area is not part of the agency’s plan and will only be considered if an unofficial trail is creating significant erosion or other damage to natural resources. Unfounded reports of the Forest Service’s plans for the area have been spreading rapidly in recent days, Nelson-Dean said.

“The idea is we’re going to be closing trails out there, and we are not closing trails,” she said.

Lindberg said his group is open to working with the Forest Service to develop a mutually beneficial plan for the Good Dog! area. He said DogPAC is not opposed to all leash requirements, but for now, owners who want to take their dogs on off-leash trips to the river have no other options.

“This would be irrelevant if we had a mountain bike-type system, where we had dozens of places to go. But this is really the only place where we can go for water access in the summer,” he said.

— Reporter: 541-383-0387, shammers@bendbulletin.com