In this Faces & Places we’re featuring the extraordinary dog parents who led the community effort to transform Golden Gate Park’s Dog Park!
“I’ve been coming to the dog park at least once a day for years with my dog. It was clear the space wasn’t meeting its potential or the necessary safety enclosures dog owners wanted for our four-legged friends. We made a lot of friends in the space though, so when Supervisor Sandra Fewer approached us at one of our weekly potluck “Yappy Hours” about creating a Friends Group to help advise on modernizing and renovating the space, we knew we had to do it.
We wanted to bring together the voices from the dog park community so they space could best reflect what the community wanted in the new dog park – what was missing, and what various different dogs needed.”
“The dog park was formerly a pit of sand that flooded, smelled bad, and had sinking fences. The space has been transformed into a play haven for dogs small and big!”
“As the renovation groundbreaking was approaching, our group also had to figure out where our dogs were going to go play in the interim period. The GGP Dog Park is the largest fenced in dog park in San Francisco, and 100s of dogs’ play spaces were going to be displaced.
We began our work in 2018 and became a fiscal sponsor of the Parks Alliance, who helped us gain clarity about what was possible, administratively, financially, etc. We then were able to accept donations to support the project!
The project finished in 2021 and families love it. It is a wonderful new space. The space has transformed into a play haven for dogs small and big. There are tree trunks for the dogs to climb and jump over. The space was completely reimagined and now it’s a dog park that people from beyond our adjacent neighborhoods bring their pups too – we even see people from outside SF visiting!
Join us at a Yappie Hour with your dog. We meet every Wednesday at 6pm. Our group will continue to fundraise so we get some lighting installed in the area so we can use it more in the winter. I also hope to organize monthly cleaning days to keep the park in good shape and create some programming like inviting local dog trainers to host dog training sessions.”