We interrupt this soap opera to bring you a special bulletin: A City Council hearing scheduled for tomorrow on "The Future of Dog Parks in Baltimore" has been canceled.

Council member Jim Kraft requested the meeting in hopes that it would lead to the Department of Recreation and Parks beginning work on a master plan for additional dog parks in the city. The city currently has only one place where dogs can legally roam off leash -- Canton Dog Park.

Kraft said the meeting was postponed at the request of Mayor Sheila Dixon. Asked why, he declined to elaborate.

Kraft, council member for the 1st District, which includes Canton, said he scheduled the meeting so that the city could begin work on an plan to add dog parks in an organized manner and provide some relief to Canton Dog Park, which he says is overburdened.

"The Canton Dog Park is overrun, so to speak, and there is a group of people interested in opening another one in Patterson Park. That put before us the question of why aren’t there more dog parks in the city," he said. (There is also a group working to establish a dog park in Latrobe Park in Locust Point.)

As it is now, groups can petition to establish a dog park, provided they pay for its construction and maintenance and get the necessary city and neighborhood approvals.

"We need to have a discussion about how many dog parks we should have around the city," Kraft said. "We have some huge parks where people could easily put a dog park on an acre two and it would barely be noticed."

Kraft said the hearing will likely be rescheduled for late June or July.

City hall sources say the cancellation of the hearing is related to possible personnel changes in the city's Department of Recreation and Parks and Dixon's desire to have those transitions complete before tackling a master plan for dog parks in Baltimore.

The department is now headed by Portia Harris, acting director, who has held the post since the department's previous acting director, Connie A. Brown, resigned in 2005.