Fancy dog park digs
Wow. Get a load of the new -- and third dog park -- that just opened this week in downtown Minneapolis.
Gateway Park, which opened Wednesday (photos are from the construction phase), features an array of designer perks, including:
- Dog ottomans
- Doggie bowl sculpture piece for drinking water, made from Dresser, WI trap rock
- Stainless steel drinking bowls
- New fence created from "Hardy Panel cement board" with "cutouts to provide porosity" (OK, I don't think I really know what that means, but, boy, it sounds snazzy!)
- Stunning (!) modern benches by Landscape Forms.
A nonprofit group called Dog Grounds spearheaded the effort. The group administers and maintains all the downtown dog parks.
From their web site: "This crowning achievement is worth the wait! Designed by award winning architecture firm Oslund and Associates, this park is the perfect marriage of beauty and functionality."
Winning architectural firms now designing dog parks?
My Daily Breeze colleague (and fellow dog owner) Kristin Agostoni agreed that the dog park looked very nice. But then she added: "It'll just get peed on."
Yeah, there is that.
But hey, congratulations anyway, Minneapolis dog owners. It is a sharp-looking dog park. And kudos to Dog Grounds, which sounds like a go-getter of a dog park support group.
Photos courtesy of Dog Grounds
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About the Bloggers
Daily Breeze reporter Donna Littlejohn has shared her homes with a succession of wonderful, funny, and occasionally difficult canines -- Muffin, Fritz, Ellie, Mercy, Pilgrim and now Cowboy, an Australian shepherd-border collie, and Tess, a border collie. From strong-willed terriers to weirdly obsessed Australian shepherds, they've invaded her world with boundless energy, wet noses, muddy paws and soggy tennis balls. But they've really brought so much more than that -- like laughter and joy, some unexpected life lessons, and more than a few tears along the way.
E-mail Donna at donna.littlejohn@dailybreeze.com.
Josh Grossberg grew up with the usual array of animals: goldfish, dogs, hamsters, parakeets and turtles. He now owns the loudest dog in the South Bay(Video: Rocket the Dog) and is the least popular person on his block. He spends his free time in dog parks, pet shops and always has an extra plastic bag in his pocket just in case. He also has a cat.
E-mail Josh at josh.grossberg@dailybreeze.com.
Beautiful park! And how generous of the city of Minneapolis to allocate that (undoubtedly) valuable open space for use by dogs and their owners. Ah, if only Los Angeles (specifically San Pedro) could be as generous! Well, my fellow "Bottom of Knoll Hill" dog park users, we now have just two short years to find a new location for our dog park. The Port of Los Angeles has been generous to provide a temporary place for us and for Eastview Little League but neither location is permanent. Is the local non-profit, Peninsula Dog Parks, Inc. working to secure a new and permanent location? If so, what is the plan? And if not, why not? Let's not wait too long and end up whining and moaning about being evicted in two years.