We picked this up from our sister site My Green Lake in part because there is a theory that Maple Leaf has more dogs per square yard than any other neighborhood in Seattle. Mostly golden retrievers.
We’ve never quite managed to prove this – it’s based on pet licenses by ZIP code area from a few years ago – but if there’s enough interest we’ll chase after it some more.
by Amy Duncan
Seattle Parks and Recreation is asking for feedback from the public about the city’s off-leash areas for dogs, including the Woodland Park Off-Leash Area, which is located west of the tennis courts at Lower Woodland Park.
A brief survey is available here.
One thing that Seattle could learn from Portland is having some fenced-in and some unfenced-in off-leash areas. Radical idea! Shocking! The dog haters will chime in now, I know. But the system totally works in Portland. Dog owners decide whether their dog belongs in a fenced park or in an unfenced park based on socialization, voice control, etc., and people don’t flip out when they see a well-behaved golden retriever fetching a ball for a few minutes near picnickers. Radical, radical, radical, shocking, shocking, shocking!
The unfenced areas in city parks there are large grassy fields in existing parks. They have several advantages:
– They allow people with retrieving breeds and mixes an area to fetch a ball for a few minutes in a suitably large space with a suitable surface; Seattle actually has no dog park where you have both large size and suitable surface.
– Because Portland’s unfenced areas are not physically delimited, owners and dogs naturally adjust their fetch lines and trajectories so that, over time, the grass doesn’t get killed at any greater rate than if fetching weren’t occurring. By contrast, Seattle dog parks can’t ever have grassy surfaces because they’re too small and with restrictive shapes, which would kill any grass you might plant. (Here you end up with essentially unusable cess pools, like Woodland Park’s dog park.)
– Seattle’s segregated system prevents dogs from becoming socialized to normal human activities, and lack of exposure to human activities is the source of the majority of behavioral issues of dogs when in public. In Portland, unfenced off-leash areas allow dogs to be way more integrated into normal human activities like picnics and walks, and they allow dogs to play in large areas with the children in their own families. That kind of exposure and integration is good for everyone. Seattle, ironically, inhibits dog socialization with its fence-only park system.
I know that Seattleites freak out about off-leash dogs because a vocal minority assumes that every dog is a latent, imminent killer of gardening grandmas and playing children or leaves mounds of poop or gallons of pee. Yes, some dogs are dangerous, but Portland doesn’t have these issues with its unfenced areas because dog owners know their dogs and know where best to exercise them.
As a frequent Magnuson Off Leash Dog Park visitor I wish there was another off leash area closer to ML or just one that wasn’t dark, dirty and smelly (Northacres & Woodland Park). I love the open air and sky at Magnuson!