Category:
Dog Park Design and Maintenance
Once you have started planning a park (or maybe you already have one), you need to think about WHO is going to use the park and HOW you are going to support and maintain it.
- Public parks are open to everyone. These depend on funds from donations and/or town budgets.
Private parks come in several different forms:
- Private Membership only (free): This design requires that people register their dog(s) ahead of time. The organizers can collect information on the dogs including vaccination records and contact information for the owners. Funding for park maintenance and enhancements is still by donation or town budget.
- Private Membership only (paid): This design not only requires that people register their dogs ahead of time, but collects a fee for each registration. This has the same benefits as the free memberships listed above, but also provides some level of funding that does not depend on pure donations. There are several parks that do this as private organizations, and other parks which collect the payment through the town offices (usually Parks & Rec). The payment/membership is usually for a year of park use.
- Pay per use: Some parks, especially the indoor ones, charge a per-use fee (or cover charge). These locations are usually run by “for profit” organizations and have employees instead of volunteers
