How to Build a Dog Park

Previously published on Friday, September 21, 2007 on http://inkslingerchronicles.blogspot.com/

*Assemble a bunch of dog owners
Plan a fund raiser*
Repeat * * until you have enough money to

• Buy the land (or to buy off the politicians so the parks department will provide the land, and to fight the neighbors in court who have a dog but don’t want a dog park in their neighborhood)
• To install a fence with double gated entry around the perimeter and to section off an area for the small dogs
• Install a water fountain with a big concrete pad and sufficient drainage to ensure it doesn’t become a mud pit (it will anyway)
• Include a spigot for washing off muddy dogs who have lain in the mud pit to cool off
• Buy kiddy pools for the dogs to play in (so that park staff can throw them out to avoid indiscriminate mosquito breeding)
• Install trash receptacles and waste bag stations (stocked with more little biodegradable baggies than you knew existed in the universe)
• Print signage with rules (that everyone in the dog park will fail to read and then ask why there isn’t a rule about X. There is. Read the sign)
• Build a bulletin board that can be used to post useful information about dogs (and ads seeking volunteers for freaky medical experiments)
• Built a rain shelter (for those days when despite the rain, “this dog is going to get some exercise dammit!”)

You now have a dog park that will be ready to operate for one week.

Next, you must
*Assemble a bunch of dog owners
Plan a fund raiser*
Repeat * * until you have enough money to pay for

• Grass mowing (soon to be replaced by mulching once the dogs manage to kill all of the grass inside the perimeter)
• Trash pickup and additional waste bags (more than you knew existed in the universe), and someone to clean up the poop (for those special dog owners who apparently aren’t required to do this for themselves)
• Demolition of the rain shelter (because the urban outdoorsmen thought you built it to provide very low income housing)
• Someone to monitor the bulletin board and remove inappropriate posts, (and to pick up the 4,000 business cards flying around and being ground into the mud advertising dog portraiture)
• Air horns to be used when a fight breaks out between dogs (but which are totally ineffective except for their ability to annoy the neighbors)
• Spraying of weeds and weed whacking to keep the vines from pulling down the fence
• Fence repair (there is no logical reason that people tear down the fencing in an unlocked gated area – they just do)

Security Guards to enforce the rules and break up fights (mostly between idiot dog owners)

And finally, you must find someone to take your job as leader of this pack of dog lovers, because your dog now refuses to go inside the dog park – absolutely parks her butt on the ground and will not be moved in that direction for love or treats.