Illinois Dog Park Survey

Beginning of article

Off leash dog facilities provide an attractive environment where dog owners can exercise their dogs. The social experience also extends to the human side of the equation.

Parks serve multiple purpose: they provide an escape from the realities of everyday life, a chance to unwind and be with nature at its bucolic best. Parks also exist as social gathering places where friends can get together to play a game of touch football or softball, or as place to bring man's best friend, his dog.

This has become more common as dog ownership has exploded in the United States, and is evidenced by the proliferation of dog parks opening across the country in recent years. From San Francisco to Seattle to Minneapolis, park districts are setting aside open space in existing parks or developing stand-alone dog parks where dogs can run off-leash.

The reasons that park districts are looking at developing dog parks are twofold: first and foremost, park districts see dog parks as a way to bring order to an existing park system. In many parks, conflicts between dogs and people are becoming more common every day, with numerous incidents of dogs biting people and dogs scaring them away from the parks. Dogs can also cause other problems that infringe upon peoples' enjoyment of parks, such as dog waste and noise, but dog parks give districts more control over the situation by reducing these potential conflicts and separating dog owners and non-dog owners.