Dog park plan has bark, and bite

Backed by police, neighborhoods across the city that want to establish a space for their four-legged friends have been pitching it not as just a place to give their pets some exercise, but a way to cut down on drug deals and loitering.

In Fields Corner, that was one of the main arguments local residents made as part of an effort to raise $200,000 for Dorchester’s first dedicated dog park.

“This is considered a crime hot spot in Boston,’’ said Paige Davis, who lives near Ronan Park, where the dog run will be located. “People who are out walking their dogs are going to meet everyone using the park. If you want to know what’s going in the neighborhood, it’s the dog owners who know everything.’’

Residents in Charlestown have also been making a similar argument as part of their press to build a dog playground in Paul Revere Park.

“The thought is with more people around and dogs - that’s the deterrent,’’ said Chris Remmes, president of Friends of Charlestown Dog Parks.

City police, who have long urged dog owners to keep a lookout for crime on their daily walks, like the idea of more positive presence on the streets.

“It’s an effective tool,’’ said Boston police Superintendent William B. Evans, who heads the department’s bureau of field services. “People with dogs who are out in the neighborhood - that’s more eyes and ears for us.’’

J. Alain Ferry, founder of BostonDOG, said his group has been making the anticrime angle a selling point in its pitch to have a dog park on Boston Common.

“Certainly one of the most appealing aspects of a dog park’’ is the anticrime component, he said. “It’s going to help clean up the neighborhood, and you might not have a lot of people loitering or late night cruising.’’

It’s hard to know the dog parks’ link to quashing crime. Boston police have not kept track.

Advocates for dog parks point to San Francisco and Washington, D.C., where they say dog owners spruced up unused and run-down lots into havens for their companions. Authorities say dogs have just three parks in all of Boston to scamper unleashed - two in the South End and one, which is newly opened, in South Boston. Boston Common has some off-leash hours as well.

Dog owners say that’s far too few for a city of 7,500 licensed dogs, and thousands more unlicensed, leaving some to resort to places where the dogs are not always wanted.

In Fields Corner, residents who got tired of trying to improvise with their pets are one step closer to their goal in Ronan Park, the Adams Street field that was once ripe with criminal activity. It was the site of the fatal stabbing of community activist John Beresford, who was killed trying to stop a purse snatching in the park.

A few years ago, Paige Davis and other Dorchester residents began eyeing an unused section of the park for their dogs. They formed a group called Friends of Ronan Park and teamed up with the Animal Rescue League of Boston, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, and the Stanton Foundation, a private New York group named for Frank Stanton, the late CBS president and philanthropist.

After a three-year effort, Friends of Ronan Park raised all but $10,000 of its $200,000 goal for a dog park in the park, which recently underwent a $750,000 revival.

The Stanton Foundation, which has given the rescue league millions in grant money before, donated $180,000 for the park. The Shirley Shattuck Windsor Trust gave $17,500 - of which about $7,500 will be used for first-year operating costs.

The money will help pay for enclosed fencing, upkeep, a water source, more lighting and special pebbles for easy cleanup.

A groundbreaking is planned in the fall.

Meghan Irons can be reached at mirons@globe.com.