Dog body language article

Check out this article on dog body language -- an excellent primer for anyone who wants to be better able to predict their dog's behavior at the park!

Spring updates

Happy Spring to all of you!

Martha kindly donated two buckets to the dog park so that dogs can have access to water deeper in the park. Thank you, Martha! We have all experienced a crush of dogs around the water at the entry area and we recognize that it's good to have access to water farther away. It's particularly helpful to move more dogs away from the entrance to let other dogs come in to the park undisturbed!

One bucket is next to the two benches that are set under the trees deep into the park. The other one is next to the entrance and can be used to carry water for refills. We hope your dogs enjoy access to water deeper into the park!

Ilyse donated a new sprayer head for the hose. Thank you, Ilyse!

Open House this Friday Mar 25, and some Thank Yous

The Urbana Park District is holding a dog park open house at the park this Friday at 4:30. Come by for a chance to chat with UPD staff and Friends Group members about your experiences at the park. Make sure your dog has their dog park tags!

Recently some new Chuck-Its appeared at the park, gifts of an anonymous donor. Thank you so much, whoever you are! The winter and heavy use have taken their toll on the original Chuck-Its that the group donated. Group members have been gradually replacing them as they break or disappear, and we really appreciate that someone out there is chipping in. We have such a great community of people at the dog park.

Along those lines I also want to extend a thank you to Friends Group member Jory, who has been collecting used tennis balls from the local court where he plays and bringing them to the park. When you see the box brimming with tennis balls, that is due to Jory. If you see him and his terrier Ginger, I'm sure he'd appreciate a thank you!

Hope to see some of you this Friday at the Open House. Happy spring!

Friends of the Urbana Dog Park on CI Living this Friday!

Martha, Jessica, and Jessica's dog Jack will be representing the Friends group on CI Living on WCIA at 4pm this Friday, February 12. For those who can't watch live, we will publish the link to view it on the web when we get it (probably early the following week). Wish us luck with our TV debut. We're pretty sure Jack will steal the show.

Dog park open house!

Urbana Park District is having an open house at the Urbana Dog Park this Saturday, February 6, from 10-10:45 am. Members of the Friends of the Urbana Dog Park will be there to answer questions and talk with park members about what they want from the park. Hope to see you there!

Mulch mulch and more mulch!

Many thanks to the Urbana Park District for the recent deliveries of mulch. More was added today to freshen up the park entrance. We expect it to keep the entrance beautifully mud-free (or at least mud-reduced) in the spring. Thanks, UPD!

Mission Statement

As defined during our Dec 8 in-person meeting and refined on our mailing list, our mission statement is:

The Friends of the Urbana Dog Park group:

• encourages responsible dog ownership and responsible park membership;
• promotes communication among dog park members and with the Urbana Park District;
• and engages in projects for park improvement.

Chuck-its, courtesy of the Friends of the Urbana Dog Park

There are now three public Chuck-Its at the park, for use by any and all. Many thanks to Martha for picking them up and labeling them with the Friends of the Dog Park contact information. We hope those with ball-crazy dogs will enjoy them!

Report from meeting with the Urbana Park District

Five of us met today with two Urbana Park District (UPD) staff members, Judy Miller and Derek Liebert. It was a very productive meeting! UPD is very enthusiastic about having a way to communicate better with the community and we are very enthusiastic about enabling members to better communicate with each other and with UPD.

We discussed rotating posters with information about park rules, dog behavior, and dog training, presented in an easy to absorb and friendly way.

We discussed the possibility of a kiosk as a location for park members to communicate with each other and with UPD.

We discussed maintenance priorities. If you have requests about maintenance items, let the group know (urbanadogs at gmail dot com) - we will communicate them to UPD, who are happy to have more “eyes on the ground” to know what's going on at the park.

Report from Dec 8 meeting

We had a lovely meeting at Martha’s house today — thanks, Martha! In attendance were Ilyse, Jessica, Jory, Karen, Laura, Martha, and Martha’s dog Stella.

We listed the basic points of a mission statement for the group. I will write this up and mail it out for the list to discuss in a day or two. When it’s finalized, I’ll make sure it’s posted on this site.

We planned our next steps:

1) Meet with the Urbana Park District (UPD). Talk with them about how best to convey any concerns from park members. (For example, current concerns: mulch by the front entrance; holes in the ground that are dangerous). Discuss setting up a kiosk/message board inside the park for messages from UPD to park members, and from park members to each other (things like lost & found, dog sitter recommendations, etc).

2) Purchase of chuck-it ball throwers for use in the park. We each donated $5 and Martha will purchase 2-3 ball throwers. We will mark them as donated by the Friends of the Urbana Dog Park, for use in the park, and leave them for public use. We'll also put up new versions of the “join the friends of the dog park!” posters to explain the ball throwers and encourage people not to take them home.

Our next meeting will be in the evening so that people with different schedules can attend. However, we hope to have most of our discussions on the mailing list.

Introductory meeting

Our first meeting is December 8 at 11 am. Our proposed agenda is below. Want to join in? Email us at urbanadogs at gmail dot com for the address and directions!

Agenda

1. Introductions: who we are, who our dogs are. If people want, they might also say why they joined this group and/or what they hope to get out of it.

2. Decide on some basic goals of the group, suitable for putting into a mission statement. When someone asks what the group is for and what it does, what will we tell them? Some suggestions to get us started:

  - improve communication among dog park users
  - improve communication with Urbana Parks District (UPD)
  - provide educational opportunities about dog care/training

3. Specific goals/projects. What do we want to work on? 

Forming the Friends of the Urbana Dog Park

We would love to have you join the Friends of the Urbana Dog Park. We were founded in the fall of 2015 by a small number of Urbana Dog Park members, and we would like to have more dog park members join us. Enter your email address below to get on the mailing list, or join the urbanadogs group on Google directly.


We have a bunch of ideas about ways to build community at the dog park so people can communicate with each other more easily and give feedback to the Urbana Park District about how things are going. We also hope to put together educational activities about dogs.


Our relationship with the Urbana Park District so far has been extremely cordial. We look forward to continuing to work with them.


 Our first steps will be to determine the goals of the group. We will do this either by email or in person, whatever the group decides.

We look forward to working with you to build the Friends of the Urbana Dog Park community!