A regular summary of irregular news and notes from neighborhood blogs and email lists around the District.

Unleashed: A debate ensued on the Cleveland Park email list after one member wrote a post condemning dog owners who don’t like to keep leashes on their dogs. While the member was in the park pushing her granddaughter, she saw a little girl chased by a dog after it became startled when she tried to touch it. The dog did not harm the child, but he did “nip at her rear end and legs” until his owners were able to call him back. After seeing the child run away in terror, she felt compelled to seek justice. “I finally got them to leash the dog but with great resistance and “attitude.” No remorse, no concern.” However, not everyone felt the owners of the dog were at fault. Another user posted this response: “[If] someone’s unsupervised child ran at full tilt up to my dog and scared the crap out of it. Then they blamed me, when the dog had its instinctual animal reaction, without accepting responsibility for not keeping control of a child too young to know better.” The other members seemed to side with the original poster, citing experiences with unleashed dogs. “One of my dogs was attacked and bitten and was saved from real harm by my husband’s efforts. On another occasion my finger was broken while trying to protect my dogs from three other dogs running loose in a park under the control of a dog walker.”

It Should’ve Stayed in My Backyard: The Brightwoodian photographs the demolition of historic car barn in the neighborhood and writes, “The Brightwood Car Barn, one of the few standing car barns from the era of DC’s first streetcars, is now in the first stages of demolition, despite past efforts of the DC Preservation League and other preservationists to save it. Walmart and Foulger-Pratt have said that they intend to use the bricks from the car barn to construct part of the Walmart store that is planned to be built on the site.” An added update notes, “I spoke with ANC Doug Smith and he confirmed what I suspected; the ANC was not informed that the demolition was moving ahead. This has taken everyone by surprise.” Commenters, unsurprisingly, are displeased. “Destroy D.C. history so you can sell cheap stuff from China to enrich out-of-state corporation. So it goes,” writes one.

Pretty Gross: A member of the Tenleytown email list is upset with the closing of the neighborhood Marvelous Market. “I know it was a mish-mash of stuff without a well-executed concept, but I loved it that the owner was always there at his little ‘office’…” Others did not have the same nostalgic feeling for the franchise. Many of those who commented thought the store was second-rate and deserved to close. One wrote that the place was “pretty gross,” while another said, “I lived here for three years and didn’t know MM was there for the first two.”

Downtown Upgrades: The Triangle reports that the Woodies building is getting a new paint job. According to a Douglas Development staffer, “the previous solid green and gold scheme wasn’t doing the ornate details justice. He suggested the old craftsmanship had a story to tell and the right color scheme could display it more prominently. At present they are experimenting with color combinations and haven’t settled on a scheme.” The blog suggests, “I think I would focus on Green, Gold and Red with a few of the smaller details in either black or white. Blue is my favorite color – but it isn’t working in this context for me.” A commenter agrees with the idea of a blue tone, but requests an even bigger change: “Now if they can just find a better tenant. Such a waste with Forever 21 in that amazing space.”