Do dogs belong at festivals?

There's a debate in London, Ont., about whether or not dogs belong at summer festivals held in city parks.
The festivals are free and the parks are public. Dogs and their owners have every right to walk through and linger.
But the events are usually packed with people and concert goers like to sit on the grass to listen to the live music. They don't want to meet a dog, no matter how friendly, face-to-face, put their hand where a dog has just peed or pooped - no matter how well meaning the cleanup, one never gets it all. There have also been dog-to-dog conflicts which likely sound, to a non-owner, like something serious. Or not - sometimes bites are exchanged.
There have been a couple of opinion columns in the daily London Free Press and at least one letter to the editor asking people to keep their dogs at home.
Here's the link to the latest column, with a too-bold headline, published July 16, 2011.
This weekend is the second consecutive one with a major festival at Victoria Park - the excellent Sunfest was last weekend and this weekend it's the Home County Festival. We were at Sunset - without Nellie our wheaten terrier.