From Animal Advocates to Allies

By Clare Leschin-Hoar

If you’ve ever been lobbied directly by a dog park advocacy group, then you know first hand that tenaciousness is a trait that doesn’t belong only to terriers. If you take the time to study this group, you will pick up that you learned you’ve created a powerful and loyal park supporter.

The first time director of parks and recreation for Iowa City Terry Trueblood was approached by a resident about an off-leash area that was almost eight years ago. The outlandish petition of the resident was boldly asking for an existing 185-acre park to be declared a leash-free zone.

“He wanted the entire park!” says Trueblood. “To just let the dogs run amuck.”

As we all knew, the city’s commission said no, and the resident never returned for good.

After all the antics from the outraged resident, Trueblood continued to get calls occasionally from residents wanting to know about a potential dog park in the community, but a few years later is when Iowa City resident Beth Shields formed Johnson County Dog PAC (Dog Park Action Committee), that a true dialogue about the up rise of a dog park began to take full effect.

“This was not the first time that Iowa City tried to get a dog park, and all the other efforts had failed,” says Shields. “We knew that in our minds we needed to have a good strong relationship with Terry, our city council and city manager.”

Shields came prepared with a 40-page proposal and showed Trueblood and city officials that her group; of nearly 250 members were willing to do the work. They formed a 501(c)(3), They showed how serious they were about their fundraising efforts, bringing in almost right at $200,000 in funding. The residents made a pack on keeping the park clean and also offered feedback on park design as well as up keep.

“Each of the residents carried their very own weight,” explains Trueblood. “If you can find a few good people that have love for this one project, they can do a lot of the work for you. I’ve learned a great deal from this experience, than they have from me in my thoughts to dog parks.”

Dialogue and communication between the two groups can foster good relations that last beyond park design and launch too.

Randle Harwood, acting director of Parks & Community Service in Fort Worth, Texas, says his experience with the dog park group in his community brought lots of great benefits.

“Now we have a great political ally in the Fort Worth Dog Association. They think highly of us now but in the beginning, they didn’t because we said, ‘No, we can’t help you. It’s outside of our range and we couldn’t justify the funding,’” says Harwood.

But with the undisputed success of Fort Woof, the city’s nearly five-acre dog park, the relationship between the park and recreation department and dog park group grew a lot stronger.

“If there’s anything we need or ask for they’re right there with us. The city gave us awards and also a $6,000 check, and the mayor thinks we can do no harm. That’s how we survive as a park and community service group is by the groups that support what we do, and we just added dog parks to the list,” says Harwood.

Moderator of Dog Park National News William Zardus, , an Internet newsgroup, says it’s a smart thing to reach out to your local dog park group, and will also help you avoid costly mistakes if you’re in the park design stage, and will help decrease any incidents once the park is opened.

Wide known user groups, also provide valuable, real-use input.

“If you’re only hearing from people who have complaints, [without a dog park group] you don’t have any way to determine if their complaints are legitimate, especially if the person doesn’t even go to the park on a regular everyday basis,” explains Zardus. “It’s good to have a liaison ...a person that knows what’s going on there.”

So far, a liaison model is also working well for a park in San Diego.
Although Robin Kaufman isn’t part of a traditional dog park group, she’s been instrumental in launching a new two-acre off-leash park in the Rancho Bernardo section of San Diego, Calif., and almost took 6years to bring forth, and cost more than $700,000, that was raised through federal and state park bonds and also private funds.

July 2005 when opened, Rancho Bernardo doesn’t have your average dog park user group to call on, but Kaufman, a volunteer with the Rancho Bernardo Recreation Council, holds the title as the official dog park liaison, and works closely with the city’s park and recreation department to keep the off leash area running smoothly.

“I’m the one who’s deep into the public, and uses the dog park, and the recreation council. I answer questions and concerns that the public and residents might have, and if needed, I’ll bring these issues up forth to the staff for discussion,” says Kaufman, who spends time at the dog park daily.

City officials and user groups often become more strained in urban areas where land is at a premium and options for designated space for dog runs far more limited, there’s still room for cooperation between the two groups.

Cambridge, Mass. This is highly populated user groups and city officials have come up with a more combined space solution, while the city works excessively to locate possible future designated off-leash areas. As of right now, Cambridge offers off-leash areas during designated hours—mostly early morning and evening—in already existing parks.

“It’s challenging,” says Stuart Dash, director of community planning for Cambridge. “We often converse with the dog owners about what they’re interested in, and in turn, they’re informed by looking at other cities and what others have done to be creative. They know that along with dog parks are a lot of responsibilities. Because you have to purchase many trash receptacles as well as dogipots.

“We work at a slow pace with great methods to walk through the issues, trying to precisely consider what the options are, and to try and resolve them; each open space has its own characteristics and unique qualities. It’s hard to do an across-the-board solution.”

In other communities, it’s the funding rather than space that can put a hawk on park openings, and sometimes even putting a damper on relationships, but its also a great opportunity for two groups to work together.

Four years of fundraising, officials in Arlington, Texas, are anticipating on opening their city’s first dog park in the fall of 2006.

“The group we work with has had our ups and downs. They aren’t too happy with the amount of time it has taking,” says Gordon Robertson, parks planning manager for the City of Arlington. “They’ve been on the right path all along to root for a dog park, but it’s taken awhile to educate politicians and even our own department.”

Since 2003, Robertson’s department has been working closely with the local dog park group, RUFF (Responsible Unleashed Fun for Fido) jointly working on fundraising efforts, and came out to be a harder than expected.

While small amounts of donations ($25, $50 and $100) flowed in, there was not a single source for a large donation, which was not a good asset to the park’s construction because it slowed it down a lot. But despite the slight strain the delay put on the relationship between the two groups, there was a surprise benefit to having a close relationship with RUFF.

A dog park would be welcomed, as City officials made it very clear, as well as tax dollars were not to be used, rather, it should be funded privately. But what Robertson says he didn’t realize was that having a citizen’s group advocate caught the ear of the park board and the city council.

“The parks department advocating for a dog park is much more of an uphill battle than if you have a long list of citizens that show up at meetings and will call board members,” says Robertson. “That’s much more effective. They very much well schooled the council on dog parks, and the much need of them.”

Work with the next dog park group instead of turning them away to create a viable solution. Your park and recreation department will do better to have a pit bull on its side, rather than a terrier against it.