THE LONG BEACH RECREATION DOG PARK ASSN.
HUNTINGTON BEACH DOG PARK REPORT

Dec. 16, 2000
(included in minutes for Feb. 1, 2001, regular board meeting)

Prepared by GERRY FACON

As part of our ongoing effort to improve Long Beach Recreation Dog Park, I visited the Huntington Beach Dog Park to see first-hand the features some of our members have suggested we look into for future projects at our park. Noted below is a summary of my observations:

1. The most often suggested improvement is the installation of "individual watering stations" to provide fresh, clean water at all times. My visit indicated that the current plumbing for our sprinkler system would in fact allow such an installation - but not without some complicating factors.

The installation would:

a) require the water to be on at all times
b) require installation of new "vertical water pipes" to accommodate the new watering stations, and
c) require installation of a "restrictor" to reduce water pressure to the watering station.

This would be a fairly easy thing to do, but the actual cost of implementing such a feature would have to be looked into further, as the watering station itself looks like it would be fairly expensive.

The downside of this feature is as follows:

a) With the water needing to be on at all times, someone would have to turn the water on each morning and off each evening to avoid vandalism, i.e. turning the sprinklers on all night.
b) My observation was that only one dog at a time can use a watering station; this led to several dogfights nearly breaking out when a second dog tired to drink out of the same station, and
c) The stations had to be cleaned out constantly, as they are small and quickly accumulate dirt and drool. In other words, fresh clean water is not available at all times and each would require continuous cleaning.

This, in my opinion, would not provide sufficient benefit to justify the cost to implement this feature in our park.

2. Their small-dog area is quite a bit larger than ours. As a result, it is used a lot more than ours. In saying that, however, they suffer from the same problem we are likely to experience, in that their small-dog park is immediately adjacent to the main entrance and there is a lot of fence-running and fence-fighting between the small- and large-dog parks. Perhaps planting a hedge along our fence would avoid such a problem - if it would survive.

3. Their "poop bag" dispensers were everywhere and encouraged donations.

4. They had several "parking meters" and donation envelopes throughout the park, further encouraging donations.

5. They had two areas, one large and one small, where park benches and picnic tables were covered by tent-like sunshades. This served two useful purposes: protection from both the sun and the rain.

The downside of this feature, however, was that people used these areas to socialize and never left to play with their dogs or supervise their dogs' activities - or pick up poop. Additionally, this feature could be a target for vandalism.

If something like this were to be considered for our park, I would be more in favor of a more permanent structure in the middle of the park. Perhaps we could have Home Depot donate the materials and have the city construct it - or supervise its construction.

6. They had many "poop cans" inside their park with plastic bag inserts. This encouraged people to pick up more, as they didn't have to go half way across the park to deposit their droppings - and had bags closer at hand.

7. They had a large number of "memorial trees and plaques" often with planters around them. This was a nice and very touching feature; and is intended to provide more shade at their park. Unfortunately, it's going to take many years to get the desired shade, and, quite frankly, it became morbid after a while. Additionally, the space available in their park is being consumed by memorials. Once you start this practice, how do you stop it?

8. Their park includes a hillside, which is a nice feature, but limits access to those who are not sure of foot. The dogs love it, however, as it provides good exercise and they can play king of the hill.

Additionally, they have a large mound of bark-like ground cover in the middle of their park. This used to be used for future layers of their ground cover and the dogs love playing on it. This, however, is the same bark-like material we have disposed of because of its undesirability and uncleanliness - but dogs love the idea of running up and down anything.

The idea of a large mound of our decomposed granite in our park has been suggested, and I believe is a good idea for the same reasons, but only after higher priority projects are in place - like more parking.

9. Speaking of parking, their parking lot was excellent, and something we should discuss with the City of Long Beach, as we - and the Casting Club - would both benefit.

10. They also had a Pet Promenade, but leading up to the entrance of their park, as opposed to going nowhere. Their implementation, in my opinion, was better. For every one of our squares (sold at $30 each), they had four smaller squares (sold at $20 each). Theirs was better thought-out and planned. As a result, their profit was double that of ours and is much more functional and attractive.

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This report is submitted for the board's and members' consideration for future park improvements. I would recommend we take similar field trips to other dog parks in the near future in order to incorporate their best features, and lessons learned, into our park in the future.

--GERRY FACON