Changes coming to Minnehaha Dog Park to comply with standards

Minnesotans who use a popular dog park in Minneapolis will see changes this fall.

After the Minneapolis Park Board voted yes in a Tuesday meeting, the plan is to add fencing to Minnehaha Regional Dog Park because they explained it does not meet city dog park standards.

A woman, Michelle Garens, who’s been going to the dog park for decades had concerns about the proposal so she started a petition that garnered nearly thousand signatures.

Pet owners explained they found out about the proposal a week ago and said they feel blindsided about the plan.

It’s a sanctuary of solitude where the dogs call the shots, Minnehaha Dog Park is a beloved area for pet lovers.

“I’ve been coming here for 20 some years and it’s my favorite place in all of Minneapolis. I love it,” Garens, dog park user, said. “He’s [dog] normally off the leash here, so he’s behaving pretty well for us right now,”

Saint is one of many pups at Minnehaha Dog Park in Minneapolis running freely.

“I would take him to the other parks, and it was just too confined and a lot of dog fighting and just not a place where he could just run and play freely,” Garens said.

But soon dogs at this park will be met with some boundaries.

The Minneapolis Park Board said in a statement the current off-leash areas do not meet city dog park standards.

They added dogs running off-leash can cause environmental damage and a danger to themselves or others depending on where they roam.

The park board plans to add fencing that stretches the length of the path to the Mississippi river and other areas near the shoreline.

Park officials also want to expand off-leash areas by 10 acres.

“It seems like they’re spinning it as if we’re getting a gift of extra additional park, but really, what they’re doing is cutting us off access to a large like even a larger majority of the park,” Garens said. “This is such a naturally beautiful place as it is, and it has a lot of natural barriers to keep the dogs inside this particular place.”

On behalf of their loyal companions who can’t say much, owners explained the restrictions would change the landscape of this park, which they said was perfect from the start.

“She [dog] just would not appreciate the sort of closed off, smaller parcel of land,” John Steitz, dog owner, said. ”It would severely affect my quality of life. Her and I come here literally every day. We hike four or five miles a day just to keep her and myself in shape. There’s such a wonderful community of people here.”

The cost of this project is at least $65,000. The park board said it will be funded through the National Park Service Grant.

“Maybe we’re in too much of a rush to find a find some sort of solution that satisfies these demarcations that we’re losing sight of the fact that this might be one of the best dog parks in the country,” Steitz said.

The construction is set to be completed this fall.