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Best Practice Name: Instant Dog Parks

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Situation:

The issue for many communities is to provide a fenced in area within public parks where residents can let their dogs run off leash and “play socialize with other dogs”.

The challenge for many communities is to find a location within a park for this type of use that is acceptable to neighbors and doesn’t displace other existing recreation facilities.

Approach:

The City of Eden Prairie looked at existing hockey rinks as ready built dog parks that are generally placed within parks far enough away from neighbors so they don’t have a negative influence on adjacent property, and are facilities that sit vacant for the most part from March 1st to about December 1st.

The only modification that had to be made was to add two cables above the boards, one at six inches above the boards and one at one foot above the boards, in order to make a five foot high fence that would contain most dogs. Our park maintenance staff developed a cable clamp that accommodated these cables for the rinks. It takes one person about two days to put these cables up on four rinks in March and another two days to take them down in late November.

Outcome:

The City designated four hockey rinks as off leash dog parks in 2004. (One in each quadrant of the City.) These dog parks are heavily used and valued by the neighborhoods. We have had no complaints from neighbors in any of the areas where these dog parks have been developed.

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