Logan residents want dogs in parks

By Mark Rosa

On Nov. 17, during the Logan City Municipal Council meeting discussion on the Parks and Recreation Master Plan update set to pass in 2016, Councilwoman Holly Daines voiced her concern that despite resident demand, the new plan update made no provisions to change city policy to allow dogs in public parks. Although Recreation, Arts, Parks and Zoos tax support was given to the Cache Valley Humane Society to open a dog park on-site to help address the demand, some Logan residents believe their needs are not being met.

Councilwoman Daines said the dog policy is one of the categories that gets the highest percentage of comments in the yearly resident satisfaction survey, so she was surprised to see there was no specific mention of the policy in the newly finalized departmental plan update. Due to the number of resident comments and concerns she believes it’s time to have a discussion about where the city is going concerning this issue.

“We should have a little bit more of a conversation and maybe address that in the plan,” said Daines.

According to Cath Manrique, the fundraiser and volunteer organizer for the humane society, the Valley View Dog Park which is about five acres and cost over half a million dollars, will help address the needs of dog owners yet more space is required to accommodate them.

“Logan as a whole is not a very friendly city for dog owners,” Manrique said. “There probably needs to be more space offered to them.”

“If every person with a social dog was to go out to a dog park, we wouldn’t have enough space,” said Amber Huggins, a volunteer at the humane society.

Despite support to change the plans policy on dogs in parks, Russ Akina, the director of parks and recreation said it’s not that simple.

Akina said that the main issue with allowing dogs in parks is that owners are not always responsible when it comes to removing their pet’s waste, which causes problems for maintenance and landscape crews who work in the parks. If pet owners could prove that they could responsibly use the parks, more consideration would be given to allowing dogs in more public spaces.

Although the policy is not set to change, Akina said that over time he sees the city moving towards the allowance of dogs in parks.