How to Create a Dog Park in Your Neighborhood (2024)

What do you do when your dog has the zoomies, your hallways aren’t long enough, and your walls can’t take any more incidents of canines ramming headfirst into them? You take your pup outside. The only issue — especially if you live in a city —is finding a safe space for your dog to run free. Plus, not everyone loves dogsopens in a new tab, as hard a truth as that is to face.

The solution: The dog park, where your dog can romp with other dogs and you can socialize with other likeminded, dog-obsessed humans.

Off-leash recreation is turning into one of the biggest imbroglios in park management, and one of the most politically challenging and hotly debated items for local legislators. The problem remains: Your dog needs exercise, and you have to get them some. So, how do you develop and maintain a local dog park in your hood?

How to Advocate For a Dog Park

Determine what public agencies are concerned with parks and dogs: Parks, Recreation, Animal Services, Public Safety and Health departments. Meet with the managers to assess their positions — offer to help with some park maintenance, like organizing a poop clean-up campaign. Let them know that you are there not just to ask for something but to provide a service as well. Not every parks and recreation staff is as efficient as Leslie Knope’s, but they could help you get started.

Befriend Your Elected Officials First

Build a Dog Park Task Force

Drum Up Support For Your Dog Park

If the dog park idea starts with just a handful of supporters, you’ll need to increase your numbers — few politicians are brave enough to turn their backs on a large number of earnest voters (especially in election years). Unfortunately, volunteers often only come flocking to the cause when citations increase or the status in a park changes. The formation of Seattle’s COLA (Citizens for Off-leash Areas) was inspired by an increase in citations from 300 to 1,200 in one year. SFDOG got its push when dogs were banned from Ocean Beach, an area within the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, because of unsubstantiated claims that dogs were disturbing Snowy Plover nestings.

You can also be proactive, like Mary Anne Morrison-Roberts, a founder of Santa Barbara’s Dog PAC (Dog Political Action Committee), who recommends making handbills and brochures and posting them at de facto dog parks, vet offices, pet stores and dog-friendly businesses around town. She also suggests that memberships should not be subject to dues; she says it is “more important to get the people enrolled — those wishing to donate, will.” Their organization, a registered 501(c)4 nonprofit performing political action, has 1,000 members and has made remarkable strides in a very short time.

Bash Dibra, a NYC dog trainer and author, has organized events, including doggie parades, to benefit Van Cortlandt Park, persuading celebrities (whose dogs he trains) to attend and contribute support — impressing both park administrators and park users. His fundraising skills and willingness to work toward consensus led to the building of a Canine Court, a state-of-the-art dog area in that Bronx park.

Gather Your Human Pack

Again, stressing the power in numbers, you might want to consider the formation of an umbrella group composed of people with a common vision. Seattle’s COLA has led the way in this manner and has been recognized as the official sponsoring group, entering into a formal agreement with the city to perform various stewardship functions in their off-leash areas. New York City’s dog parents banded together to form NYCDOG in response to the city’s draconian crackdown against off-leash recreation.

Write Your Case

A position paper serves a variety of purposes. It will help to synthesize your thoughts and prepare you for the public speaking circuit, and it will be the central part of your proposal (which should also include case studies and supporting affidavits). A shorter version can be used as a handy and ever-necessary “fact sheet” (important for policymakers with short attention spans), and as your press release (get to them before your opponents do).

One vital suggestion here is to use a different term for dog park. Play it safe — try using terms like “off-leash” or “multi-use area,” stressing the human component at all times. You can also use the term “OLA,” meaning “off-leash area.”

Make Your Case Even Stronger

Dog Park Zoning

It is beyond the scope of this space to write about macro-level planning issues or site analyses — we all know that a city should provide a series of neighborhood parks accessible to the daily needs for all its citizens, including those with dogs, with major municipal or regional parks available for special jaunts. Taking these limitations into consideration, we’ll concentrate on some zone guidelines for a prototypical off-leash park, if only in the abstract.

Size

If your OLA is located on a new site or built within an established park, size is the single most important and probably the most contentious criterion to be decided. Let it be suggested as a rule of thumb that the bigger the better.

Fencing

Another bone of possible contention is fencing. In parks close to traffic, fencing — with consideration for aesthetic concerns — might be necessary. In these cases, double-entry, self-closing gates are recommended. Unless your dogs are into high hurdling, a four-foot fence should be adequate. Chain-link (vinyl-coated) fencing is probably the least expensive.

Children

Even though allowing children into OLAs is more of an operational than a design issue, is it usually during the design stage that this issue is addressed. Most parks do allow children but some take the precaution of noting on their signage that children under a certain age must be accompanied by an adult.

Other design considerations:

• Available parking that will not interfere with or disturb neighbors

• Compliance with American Disabilities Act requirements — service dogs and their companions should be urged to use OLAs

• Buffer Zones from neighbors who might be concerned about barking

• Conveniently sited, covered trash receptacles and poop disposal product dispensers

• Bulletin boards for posting notices, raising public awareness, announcing training classes, etc.

• Shade trees, good drainage, maintain-able turf

• Water fountains with both human and dog-level spigots

• Clear, concise, and aesthetically pleasing signage

• Benches, tables, agility equipment, swimming pond

Humans Benefit From Dog Parks, Too

There are great societal benefits, including enhancement of public safety, in allowing off-leash activity in parks.

Exercise not only tires a dog out, but “also generates ample supplies of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which has a mood-stabilizing and calming effect on personality,” as Dr. Nick Dodman describes in his book Dogs Behaving Badly: An A toZ GuidetoUnderstandingandCuring Behavioral Problems.He also adds that you should exercise your dog “preferably first thing in the morning for an effect that lasts all day.”

A more relaxed dog also leads to one less inclined to bark the day away.

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