Look: 12 Austin Dog Parks! Austin

We loved the solution Abby blogged about yesterday called the PetaPotty for pet owners living in small spaces who want to give their pets some taste of the outdoors. While that's a great day-to-day solution, we bet your pet would really benefit from a nice long romp in a dog park. Austin residents have twelve to choose from! More after the jump...

Your dog can roam leash-free, socialize and get all the exercise he needs at these twelve parks that have official leash-free dog areas (list taken from the Austin Park Foundation website):

Town Lake - Auditorium Shores 920 W. Riverside Drive 78704
Bull Creek District Park 6701 Lakewood Dr. 78731
Turkey Creek at Emma Long 1600 City Park Rd. 78730
Northeast District Park 5909 Crystalbrook Dr. 78724
Norwood Estate Off-Leash Area 1009 Edgecliff Terrace 78704
Red Bud Isle 3401 Redbud Trail 78703
Onion Creek 7001 Onion Creek Dr. 78744
Shoal Creek Greenbelt-Central 2631 Shoal Creek Blvd. 78705
Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park 12138 N. Lamar Blvd. 78753
West Austin Park 1317 W. 10th St. 78703
Zilker Metropolitan Park 2100 Barton Springs Rd. 78746

Austin residents, tell us which dog parks are your favorite here in the city and let us know if we've left out any good ones!

[Photo credit: These photos are taken at the dog park on Auditorium Shores, but more photos from the different dog parks mentioned in this post can be found at Austin360.]

Our dog LOVES Turkey Creek, and we love that it's a great hike for humans too!

posted by brennam on September 4th 2008 at 8:46am
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We went to Norwood before we got a place with a yard and typically had a great but there are 2 peeves of mine:

1) Apparently there is a tiny number of dog owners who seem to think the dog park is doggie day care. The first time we went, this gigantic mastiff was going quite aggressively after our dog. I was frightened, and a nice--and brave--guy carried this huge dog around the park trying to find his owner. Either the owner had dropped the dog off and split, was totally oblivious, or was simply not copping to his/re responsibility.

2) Much more common: owners of tiny dogs that don't monitor them at all. There's always a little chihuahua humping every dog he can, and the owners do absolutely nothing but, perhaps, giggle.

I guess they're both the same: letting your dog off-leash does not absolve you of responsible supervision.

Sorry for the rant. The parks are great, the volunteers who maintain them are awesome.

posted by renata on September 4th 2008 at 5:15pm
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I'm a little surprised to see this here. I figured AT folks were a little smarter.

Dog parks are for PEOPLE, not dogs. It's a place for YOU to take YOUR dog so YOU can feel GOOD about giving YOUR dog offleash time. Notice the pattern here?

Ask most trainers and responsible dog owners, and they will agree. Bringing your dog into a situation (a dog park) that forces them to have to establish and re-establish pack order again and again is stressful for them and VERY VERY detrimental to their trust in you, their pack leader. What may look like them having fun to YOU may be a form of play that is actually pack-order confusion behavior.

GET IT THRU YOUR HEADS, PEOPLE. DOGS DO NOT "NEED" OTHER DOGS OR PLAYTIME WITH OTHER DOGS. **YOU** are their "pack." They trust YOU to keep them safe and not force them suddenly into other packs. Pepper that situation with kids (who usually are not instructed on how to interact with strange dogs safely) and ignorant owners chatting over coffee, and you have a recipe for potential disaster at worst, and DEFINITE damage in your dog's trust of you at best.

PLEASE, AT. Do NOT promote dog parks, and please, dog owners, read up and do your research. Start here and OPEN YOUR MIND to a different perspective if you really love your dogs.

http://leerburg.com/dogparks.htm

posted by Bx on September 4th 2008 at 11:48pm
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