The movement to establish off-leash dog parks has been making inroads across the Twin Cities -- even in areas that don't offer up the kind of out-of-the-way nooks and crannies that are most readily repurposed for dogs and their owners to roam unattached.
The latest proposed site for an off-leash park is in the heart of south Minneapolis, miles from existing dog runs. But the idea of building such a facility in a park named for Martin Luther King, Jr. has stirred protest. Still, the president of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board says he thinks an accommodation can be found.
It's a big park, John Erwin points out, and people in the Kingfield and adjacent neighborhood have dogs that need exercise just as much as their counterparts in areas closer to the city's center or its outskirts.
A decade or so ago, the goal of setting up areas for dogs to run off-leash anywhere in the parks of Minneapolis and St. Paul was a cause that required energetic, organized advocates explaining the need and the benefits to a sometimes skeptical public.
Minneapolis now has four outlying
off-leash dog parks--one each in Northeast, along the Mississippi River, at Minnehaha Creek and near Lake of the Isles--as well as three more around downtown, established through the efforts of the
Dog Grounds nonprofit organization.
St. Paul has one official
off-leash dog park at Arlington and Arkwright streets, but a city
task force has been looking into the possibility of creating parks at other sites as well.
Source: John Erwin, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
Writer: Chris Steller