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Health & Fitness

Lake Forest Pet Tales - Part 2 (The Dog Park)

Why doesn't Lake Forest have a dog park? Smaller and less affluent cities have them.

We noted last time that Lake Forest was home to some of the pet friendliest people in the world, yet in Lake Forest we don’t have our own dog park. Nearly half the cities in Orange County have their own dog park. 8 cities with fewer people than Lake Forest nonetheless have a dog park. Here’s a list (along with population numbers) –

• Laguna Woods (18,371)
• Ladera Ranch (21,250)
• Laguna Beach (23,727)
• Seal Beach (25,334)
• RSM (49,249)
• San Clemente (65,338)
• Laguna Niguel (66,126)
• Buena Park (78,282)

Not only do they have fewer people, they have fewer licensed dogs. Even Costa Mesa, which has more people, but far fewer licensed dogs, has their own dedicated dog park (and it’s quite a nice one, too).

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Lake Forest has 28 parks. Some are as large as 44 acres (Serrano). Lake Forest parks provide basketball courts, playgrounds, picnic areas, fitness areas, and sports fields for soccer and baseball, and tennis courts. In the Capital Improvement budget, the city spends millions on parks every year, and will spend tens of millions for a new sports park complex containing fields for baseball, soccer, and basketball as well as volleyball courts and playgrounds. But not a penny for a dog park.

Of course, no one is saying “Dogs first, people second”, but the plain fact is that dog parks are not for dogs, they’re for the people who own the dogs. Dog parks provide a place where we can go and relax. It’s a place where our dogs can socialize, run around, and come home relaxed, which benefits us. It’s a place where we can go and talk to other pet owners, and get tips about how to take better care of our pets. Dog parks are for people, not dogs.

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Building a dog park isn’t rocket science. Garden Grove just built one and Mission Viejo is in the process. Dog parks don’t have to be large. Most are 2 acres or less (Costa Mesa, Ladera Ranch, Buena Park, Garden Grove, Laguna Niguel) and some (Laguna Woods) are so small they could be squeezed into a football field with plenty of room to spare.

So why is it that in one of the pet friendliest cities around, where pet businesses flourish, our City Council has refused to build a dog park? Here are some of the answers city council members have given –

• Our citizens haven’t asked for one!
• We don’t want to spend our money on dogs!

Any of the hundreds of people who have raised this issue over the years knows the answer to the first question. We have asked, but we have been ignored (don’t take it personally. The city council ignores lots of people and lots of issues).

Anyone who owns a pet knows that the answer to the second question is that the park isn’t for the dog, it’s for the owner.

Getting a dog park for the city won’t be so difficult. We have the money in our budget and are spending millions on parks, so using a small percentage for a dog park would not be unreasonable, given that 50% of our households have a dog.

But if we didn’t want to divert city funds for a dog park, it could certainly have been a condition of the new development programs that have been slated for our city. After all, these 3,000 new homes are going to bring in at least 1,500 new dogs to our city. Of course that ship has sailed, so this alternative is now mute.

Another alternative would be for the city to use the existing parks, and instead of building a park just for dogs and their owners, we could partition a small part of some of our larger parks and have “pocket parks” where dog owners could come. These smaller parks could be strategically placed so that every part of the city had reasonable access to a pocket park. Naturally there are considerations like noise, parking, etc., but noise, parking, etc. are already factors in building parks. With a minimal of effort and cost, 2 or 3 pocket parks could be built in a matter of months and the city and its thousands of dog owners would be very appreciative. The dogs would probably be happy to.

Especially now, with the price of gas so high, local dog parks would be a blessing.

The current city council has no plans to build a dog park. And there is probably no amount of persuasion that will convince them to do this. If the citizens of one of the pet friendliest cities want a dog park, they need to elect someone to the city council who will listen to their concerns and who will pledge to get them a park.

BTW – that doesn’t mean someone who will “study” the issue or who thinks that a dog park is “a good idea”, but someone who will commit to building a dog park.

Next topic – “gimmie shelter”

PS - Please send pictures of you and your pet to GardnerForCouncil@gmail.com so they can be included in this series.

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