BoxerLover and Gang,

Signing a petition (get LOTSA' people to sign, the more the better!) will increase chances of turning a non-dog park into a dog park in a flash! The large park near me, it's about 25-30 acres, not sure, did not allow dogs to run off lead and they had No-Poop signs up all over the place. It was obvious that it was not a dog-friendly place. Some saint decided to get a petition going around and with several hundred, maybe even in the thousand signatures we got it converted into a dog park! It's been a dog park for about 5 years now. We have dog groups there, most of the dogs who attend the dog groups (every Wednesday at around 5:00 and Sunday's starting at 10:00 AM and lasting for up to 3 hours) are regulars, we know all the dogs by name and all the dogs have their favorite friends. Graham's best friend is a young lil Pembroke Corgi named Teddy and Cassie's best friend there is a petite young dalmation named Heidi. And every dog there has a best friend. It's something great to do for them, and it's something I recommend starting in your community. You may even end up being someones hero for starting a dog park in your area!

Also, I am not sure how your city is, but when I go to get their licenses at the town hall they give out a printout list of dog parks when they give you the license in my city. You may have dog parks in your area and not even know about it! Some of the dog parks in my list I had never known were dog parks! One of the parks has a huge lake and several wooded trails! I had no idea it was even there! As soon as I got that list from the town hall I took Graham (this was pre-Cassie) and let him swim to his heart's content! We had been hoping to find a water park in our area that allowed off-lead dogs. We struck gold.

Just something to think about