A year ago, I spent two weeks in a seaside town in Sicily. Idyllic, except for the five dogs that lived on the beach in front of our condo. The locals called them “selvaggios,” an Italian word meaning wild and savage.

The selvaggios had no owners, no leashes. They lived by no human rules. They barked through the night. They chased joggers. They acted as if they owned the beach. And they did.

A week ago, I was driving up Doomsday Hill on the North Side and a Spokane selvaggio skulked from the bushes onto the street. The black dog had greenish eyes. No leash. No owner in sight. The dog peered at me with the casual arrogance once embodied by Sicilian-American crooner Frank Sinatra.

Spokane’s dog culture has always unnerved me. Some people still walk their leashless dogs in neighborhoods and parks and get angry at those of us who point out that it’s against the law. Confession: I’m afraid of dogs that aren’t on leashes.

And this sounds snobby of me, but the fact that dogs roam so freely here makes Spokane seem backward and small-townish. We can’t evolve into a happening, sophisticated city or county without leash laws that are observed. Picking up dog droppings would help our image, too.

On Wednesday, I glimpsed a scene that gave me hope that Spokane’s selvaggio ways might be changing. Spokane County opened a dog park. It’s located just off Interstate 90 at the Stateline exit. On this 3.5 acres, dogs can run leash-free in a fenced area.

As I drove to the park, I felt nervous. I thought of George Orwell’s classic book “1984” in which Winston, the main character, is threatened with the thing he fears most – rats. His torturers intend to place a rat-filled cage around his face and let the rats run loose all over his head. Yikes. A dog park would seem the perfect torture for canine-fearing folks like me.

I arrived at the park and saw black dogs, white dogs, big dogs, small dogs, dogs with spots, dogs without spots – go, dogs, go! The owners sat around and spoke in dog. She’s a rescue from when she was 4 months old.

I didn’t feel threatened in the least, because I was with dog owners who respected the rights of both humans and animals.

Nancy Hill, Spokane County’s animal protection director, stood in the center of the go-dogs-go scene. She and others had worked toward the big day for months. Hill is well aware of anti-human feelings held by dog owners who believe it’s a dog’s right to run leash-free.

She told me of one dog owner who was recently fined $76 because his leashless dog chased a jogger. The owner was outraged and said of the person who complained: “He should jog someplace else.”

Hill introduced me to Beth Tubbs. Tubbs recently moved to Spokane from Seattle. Her husband is a fourth-year University of Washington medical student doing training here. Seattle has 11 dog parks. Tubbs looked on the Internet to find information about Spokane dog parks. She found none.

“For a city this size, I was surprised,” she said.

She tracked down Hill and asked, “What do we need to do?”

Tubbs is part of Friends of the Dog Park, a newly created group. Members envision dog parks scattered throughout Spokane – both in the city and the county. I hope their vision becomes reality.

Transforming Spokane from Podunk to Cool Town requires the sacrifice of old habits. As more people move here with more and more dogs, we need to let go of some canine-based freedoms. Spokane’s dogs can no longer be allowed to act as if they own the place. They don’t. Go, humans, go.