Oct 5, 2009

Dog Wood Park, Jacksonville...Gary's day out....

We stayed in Jacksonville this weekend, and to give Gary a treat we decided to take him to Dog Wood Park. This is a wonderful 42-acre swim and play park for people and their doggies. The park is one of the country's largest completely fenced dog parks and it would be our 1st time there.

We arrived as a visitor ($11 - you're worth it though my boy!) and were given a quick tour of the facilities. They have...

•Lake Bow Wow, a 2-acre swimming lake for dogs (with a fountain!)
•25 acres fenced with 6-foot chain link fence
•Huge fields for frisbee and throwing balls
•A 4-acre shady area for those hot days
•A dog shower for muddy paws
•Barkham Woods, a 10-acre natural wooded area with nature trails around and through it
•Small dog area for dogs under 25 pounds with both sunny and shady sections, and Lake Fifi, a small dog swimming pond!
•Night dog: 4 lighted acres for use after dark (until 10 p.m.)
•Special Events: a one or 3-acre separate area that can be rented for parties, festivals, or any kind of special event
•Kids 'N Dogs: a separate area with playground equipment for kids of all ages and kid-friendly dogs
•Benches and swings for relaxing
•Hammocks for those into serious laying-back
•Picnic tables
•A doggie sand pile for climbing and digging
•Tunnels, tires, jumps and other fun exercise obstacles for the dogs
•Park-provided tennis balls
•Use of a full agility course (for safety reasons, use of the agility equipment is restricted to those who are taking or have taken an agility course)
 
 
The best thing really is that the dogs get to run off leash and socialize with other dogs. Because they are outside of their own enviroments they tend to behave very well with each other and we only saw a couple of small squirmishes which were soon broken up by the owners. It's lovely to walk somewhere where there is no poo too!..Everyone picks up...it's a miracle!
 
Gary's favourite bit? the large dog pool.. he was swimming for an age and even found himself a big stick to chase... check out the video!

 
 
 
We will be going back, probably just as a visitor to start off with as it's pretty expensive for us if we don't use it very often...but we'll see, maybe Gary will get a membership for Christmas!
 
 

5 comments:

Unknown said...

$11 to walk a mutt? You must be barking ('scuse the pun!)

Clare and Gary said...

Ahhh..i'd pay $100 for Mutley to give him a good time ;-)

Annie (Lady M) x said...

$11 to walk a mutt?! You are barking mad ('scuse the pun!)

GW said...

I have seen photos of that dog park...Amazing. I sure wish we had something like that where we live. Of course, with all that room to roam, we'd be hard pressed to catch our greyhound mix. We'd have to wait until she'd run herself ragged. The dog who'd REALLY enjoy it is our brindle girl, Stella. She loves to swim and loves to dig. She'd be in doggie Heaven!

Clare and Gary said...

aaaah..I just googled brindles as I didn't know what they looked like and Gary was playing with two of them whilst he was there..they were loving the water...It's a great place...the dogs have s much fun and behave so well.

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