When the weather gets warmer…more dogs come out to play!  So now is a good time to review the rules and etiquette for taking Fido to the park.  Most important of course is to make sure your dog is properly vaccinated and socialized.  Puppies under 4 months, dogs without all their shots, and aggressive or extremely timid dogs are best to avoid the dog park.

The best way to insure a good time for all, be respectful of your park (clean up after your dog) and always watch your dog.  Make sure your pooch isn’t playing too rough or cowering in fear under the park bench.  Always be there to protect your dog.

That said, here are the official rules for Chicago’s dog parks – click on the link for more information from the MonDog Website:

• Clean up after your dog
• Don’t bring people food into the park
• Always ask before feeding another dog a treat
• Don’t discipline another person’s dog, but do remove your dog from an aggressive or inappropriate situation.
• Play with your dog and pay attention to him, but don’t forget to let him socialize with the other dogs.
• If you see another dog and their parent about to leave, call your dog over so they can leave easily.
• Always shut the gate behind you.
• Talk to people – chat about your puppies and give other dog parents a heads up if you’ve been there for a while and noticed anything unusual or a dog that could be potentially aggressive.
• Fill the water bowl, take the time to rinse out the bowl and fill it with fresh water if it’s been sitting there for a while.

Did we forget anything?  What other tips can you think of for making our dog parks a better place?

This is an updated version of Dog Parks Rules & Etiquette posted 5/7/12 on the 16thWabashDogPark blog.

Introducing South Loop Dog of the Week, Bijvoet!

Australian Shepherd Bijvoet (‘bye-foot’) is a bossy, fun, happy dog who loves to play agility, but loves her frisbee and soccer ball even more. This week she’s at the AKC National Agility Championship, appearing for the second time, and she’s doing great! She’s not the fastest dog, but she’s very consistent over the jumps, weaves and obstacles, and she’s now in 71^st place out of over 400 dogs!

Bijvoet is named after a famous Dutch chemist, Johannes Martin Bijvoet, who worked on the foundations of X-ray Crystallography in the mid-20th Century. Her dog mom Pam is an X-ray Crystallographer!

What a good dog!

Introducing Tequila, South Loop Dog of the Week!

Kelsey writes –

Meet Tequila! Our two year old, fun, loving, snuggle monster!

We got Tequila from PAWS about a year and a half ago. She came into PAWS as a stray from another shelter, as she was next on their list to be euthanized. Thank God PAWS got to her just in time, because this amazing pup has changed our lives!

When my boyfriend, Patrick, and I first met Tequila, she was a confused, sad-faced, underweight pup. She was hesitant to trust anyone or anything she came into contact with. As for Patrick and I, we had just moved to Chicago and we are both huge animal lovers. Not to mention our new neighborhood in the south loop was ideal for dogs with the numerous dog parks, playgroups, and pups everywhere!

After having been through so much in her past, Tequila made a drastic transformation into the happiest, most perfect dog. She brings smiles to our faces each and every day and we absolutely love coming home to our loyal family member. Tequila has such an amazing personality. We often refer to her as being half human but, she loves to go to the dog park and socialize with the other neighborhood pups, too!

Tequila made our new surroundings in this city, home. We cannot imagine life without her peppy, uplifting, loving personality.

Wow, what a good (and photogenic!) girl!

Introducing Dupree, South Loop Dog of the Week!

Dupree is an American Bulldog. He’s almost 12 years old and has lived in the South Loop all his life. Dupree’s a favorite at many South Loop parks, and a favorite in his building!

He is definitely a gentle giant!

Introducing Daisy, South Loop Dog of the Week!

Daisy was adopted from PAWS Chicago almost a year ago, and she brings her pet parents nothing but joy!

Lisa and Justin write “Daisy enjoys long walks through the streets of Bridgeport, (we really need a dog park in Bridgeport),  playing in the South Loop dog parks, lovingly chasing our cat, endless games of indoor fetch, and hiding her favorite bones in our couch! Daisy has never met a siren that she hasn’t stopped to howl at,  is a world class cuddler, and her favorite place in our neighborhood is Bark N Bite, where she can stop to get treats from Laura and Kim.”

“We are so lucky to have had Daisy come into our lives!!”

What a good girl!

Introducing South Loop Dog of the Week: Bruno!

Bruno is one year old. His favorite toys are his stuffed fox and any and all Nylabones and chewy ropes.

His favorite dog park is the d’Angelo DFA.
What a good boy!

[Archived from Proposed Fred Anderson Dog Park 16thwabashdogpark.blogspot.com]

We’ve gotten an update about the design of Fred Anderson Park from Michael Lange, the project manager at the Chicago Park District.

The design drawings are almost complete, and we are privileged to be able share the latest with you.  The overall design is very similar to what we’ve presented previously. But as they say, the devil is in the details!  Here are some highlights:

• The small dog area has been expanded a bit. Good news for all the ‘small fluffies’ in the neighborhood! (a.)
• There is now one entrance gate, at the southwest corner, shared between the small- and large-dog parks. (b.)
• A bulletin board will be installed at the entrance area. (c.)
• There will be mounting posts for informational signs at the overlook in the center of the park. South Loop Dog PAC will be assembling material to post there in order to educate kids about dogs and about how to approach them. (d.)
• An expanded area is now to be covered by dog-friendly artificial grass! This is great news for fetch-driven dogs that might want to play here. The perimeter of the park remains concrete. (e.)
• There will be an access gate at the east of the park for maintenance, and a second double entry to the dog area. (f.)
• A space has been designed for a lockbox to store park maintenance materials. (g.)
• Shade sails will be place throughout the park (light blue triangles in the picture above), including over the performance stage!  There will be benches and tables distributed throughout. (h.)
• In order to unify the whole area, even the sidewalk along S. Wabash will be integrated as part of the design into the rest of the park. (i.)
• The water runnels have been reconfigured somewhat; there will be two separate features, one in the small dog area, and one in the large dog area. (j.)

Construction is expected to start by summer, but we don’t really have hard information about the schedule. The park presumably will be completed early next year (2014). It’s going to be a substantial project, involving some remediation of the lot, and the construction of berms and other topological features will take some time.

We have raised one issue with the CPD: According to current plans the dog park will be surrounded by a 6′ high ‘Omega‘ fence.  This is the type of fencing used at the Bartelme Park DFA. We think that a fence this high in a park this small will create the feeling of being in a cage or a prison, and have suggested that the fence height be 5′ – still a substantial barrier. It’s important to us to maintain a relationship between the dog owners in the DFA and the non-dog owning community that may be on the surrounding path or in adjacent park areas.

The board of the South Loop Dog PAC has been in ongoing communication with the CPD about this park since March of 2010. We thank Michael Lange for being willing to listen to us and to incorporate ideas from our dog-friendly perspective. We have to admit – it’s pretty gratifying to see many of our suggestions now implemented. We hope that this experience bodes well for future collaboration between the dog community and the CPD as new Chicago dog parks are designed and built.

As an aside, we’ll also be updating you soon about two other dog friendly area projects in the South Loop that we’re involved with:

• d’Angelo Park DFA – The story of our efforts to remediate problems introduced from the beginning by the design of this ersatz dog park.
• Coliseum Park Dog Run – An update on plans for improvements of the playground and DFA that were recently announced. SLDogPAC will be meeting with CPD representatives next week.

Finally, we invite any reader to please join South Loop Dog PAC – not just as a contributing ‘member’ but as an involved dog owner. We welcome your ideas, and your thoughts about and support for these projects!

A final design proposal for the Fred Anderson Park was presented at a community meeting on November 20th. What follows is a brief description to highlight how the proposed dog friendly area compares to other Chicago dog parks, and to point out some interesting design features.

Here’s an overall picture of the proposal:

The site is situated between 16^th & 18^th St, between Wabash Ave and the alley to the east. Right now, this area is just a vacant field and the small asphalt parking lot to the north:

The park will encompass about 1.1 acres.  Now, Chicago dog ‘friendly’ areas are small, and this park will be no exception.  Frisbee dogs and dogs running free – you will have to go elsewhere.

The proposed small-dog area is an oval about 67’ by 94’, and is surfaced primarily (80%) with concrete.  About 18% of the surface will comprise an ‘artificial grass’ feature, a central raised planting, and a water runnel flowing from the planted area towards the center of the dog park.

The proposed large-dog area includes an entry space ~20’ wide by 70’ long and a larger ‘fetch’ area running north-south that is ~35’ wide by 226’ long. This fetch area will include two raised plantings (see the cross-section diagram, below), a strip of artificial grass and a water runnel flowing through it.

Overall, the small-dog area will comprise ~5200 sq ft (0.12 acre).

The large-dog area will comprise ~13700 sq ft (0.32 acre).

For comparison, Grant Bark Park is ~18000 sq ft (0.4 acre), and the average size of a Chicago DFA is ~0.18 acre.  The Fred Anderson Dog Park now proposed occupies only  about 45% of the ~1.1 acre site.  This is less than the original design proposal presented two years ago, but is certainly an improvement over the revision that was presented last year.

However, it’s instructive to compare the 35’ x 226’ size of the ‘fetch’ area in the proposed design to what exists at Grant Bark Park – for perspective, it’s about the same size as just the gravel area of Grant Bark Park:

And, as designed, there’s no escaping that the dog park surface will be largely concrete, hard, and somewhat reminiscent of the Mary Bartelme Park DFA:

Thus, the proposed Fred Anderson Park dog ‘friendly’ area will be ~three quarters concrete, with only one-quarter of the area as artificial grass or elevated planted features.

There will be one double-gated entrance to the small-dog DFA. The large-dog DFA will have two double-gated entrances on opposite sides, one of which will provide access from the alleyway to the east.

There are some nice features to the design –

• An overlook – the center of the park will be elevated to create an ‘overlook’ over the dog friendly area. This might be a site for future sculpture [a statue dedicated to jazz legend Fred Anderson has been discussed], and should provide a space for informational graphics to bring the dog-owning and non-dog-owning communities together.

• Dog water fountains – there will be at least three different water fountains with dog-bowls and hose connections (for dog water play and maintenance).

• Equipment gates – an access gate from the east side of the park will allow access for large equipment, and there will be an access gate between the large- and small-dog areas.

• Surrounding path – a 7.5’ wide perimeter path will surround the dog-friendly area and connect the various parts of the park together.

• Shade structures – there will be shade sails installed around the dog park to provide protection from the sun and from the weather.  South Loop Dog PAC has suggested a shade sail over the stage area, as well, in order to provide protection for performers and to reflect its use elsewhere in the park.

• Performance area – there will be an ~1000 sq ft performance stage anchoring a ~4500 sq ft  ‘performance area’ at the northwest corner of the park. There will be seating and, we hope (per comments made at the community meeting!), some kind of performance lighting provided.

• Water features – the water feature seems particularly novel, as park users will press a switch to turn the flow of water on and off. Water will flow through a ‘concrete runnel a few inches deep with small stones and boulders embedded’.

Overall, it seems like an exciting plan!  We are particularly interested in what you think about this proposal, and we welcome your comments below or by email. We expect to continue discussion with the Chicago Park District about this park, and will be sure to communicate your comments and concerns to them.

Cross section of the park, illustrating elevation changes: