Lawns and Dogs

Including a Case Study of Dogs and Martha Washington Park

Jan 7, 2016 -- David Perasso

Feb 4, 2016 -- bibliography added

Some dog owners have advocated for the use of park lawns as off leash areas (OLAs), but park lawns are a problematic surface for OLAs. Experience at Martha Washington Park and best OLA design practices argue strongly that lawns should not be the main surface in an OLA, but should only be used sparingly in the most lightly trafficked areas.

Some Dog Owners Prefer LawnsMany dog owner's would prefer to exercise their dogs on a lawn as opposed to a harder surface, such asgravel.

COLA (Citizens for Off Leash Access) has expressed this preference on its website and in public statements.

From COLA's Biennial Report: https://seattlecola.org/cause/cola-biennial-report-2014-2015/ :

“Thus, a major focus of our advocacy has been on broadening Seattle officials’ understanding of dogs, dog owners, and the overall community benefits of dog parks, moving the concept from gravel/chain‐ link prison camps kept hidden from other park users toward adopting a plan for more park‐ like grassy areas for dogs and their people of which Seattle can be proud.” (bold added)

And the chair of COLA, Ellen Escarcega, has stated that Martha Washington Park in Rainier Beach is perfect for an off-leash area. (see: http://rainiervalleypost.com/he-saidshe-said-does-se-seattle-need-more-off-leash-dog-parks/). With the exception of the gravel beaches and gravel paths all accessible areas at Martha Washington Park are lawn.

The desire of dog owners to exercise their dogs on a beautiful lawn is understandable, but is is practical?

Lawns as an OLA surfaceThe problem with lawns is that even with extensive maintenance they do not hold up to the heavy use of a dog exercise area. They are also breeding grounds for diseases and parasites. Except for the lightest use areas or under excellent conditions and with careful (and expensive) maintenance, lawns are not suitable as surfaces for OLAs.

Lawns are, of course, challenging in the Pacific Northwest. The combination of long, cold, wet winters and dry, hot summers results in lawns that are either heavily maintained or filled with moss in winter and dried brown in summer. But even in areas with more suitable climate, lawns are problematic in OLAS.

For example, in Douglas County, Colorado OLA designers concluded that the only solution was to alternate use of lawns from one year to the next:

“As design discussion progressed, our maintenance staff voiced its concerns about the ability of the irrigated turf to recover from overuse. No matter what you do, or how well you address the wear of

the turf through over-seeding and fertilization, if use is not removed and the grass does not have an opportunity to grow, it will never recover. Based on this concern, the design discussion moved to figuring out how we could effectively remove use from the worn areas, yet still allow use of the park.

The solution to this diverging thought was based on a prevailing agricultural concept in our area -- pasture rotation, where one area is rested while another is opened for active use.”

see: http://parksandrecbusiness.com/archives/parks-playgrounds/evolving-dog-park-design-standards/

Similar difficulties are encountered in the eastern US, where lawns grow naturally in the wet summers. In her paper titled, “Dog Parks: Benefits and Liabilities”, landscape designer Laurel Allen devotes a section to a discussion of OLA surfaces: (see: http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=mes_capstones)

Beginning on page 55, she explains why lawn is the most difficult surface to maintain and discusses other, better alternatives. Some of her comments:

“Grass is an inexpensive option initially, but someone must mow it, water it, and reseed and repair the holes and ruts.“

“Urine and feces have a high concentration of nitrogen, the result of protein breakdown. … Small amounts can act like a fertilizer and have “green up” effect, while large quantities can burn the lawn and create dead patches. “

“For optimal health of the dogs and the sod, Dr. Robert Snetsinger, Emeritus Professor of Entomology in the College of Agriculture at Pennsylvania State University, thinks it is best to have several fields, which can be rotated each year like a crop, as is recommended for livestock pastures (Dr. Robert Snetsinger, personal communication [to Laurel Allen], February 3, 2007). For example, there would be two large dog and two small dog run areas and only one run for each size would be used a year.“

In addition to the maintenance issues, lawns are wonderful places for parasites to grow and multiply. Her article discusses parasites and soils beginning on page 92.

The above points about lawns in OLAs are confirmed in many other articles and documents, and though there is variation depending on climate, soils and amount of usage, lawns are seldom, if ever, the most suitable surface for anything but the lightest use portion of an OLA. (Genessee OLA is a goodexample of an OLA that combines a gravel area for heavy use with a surrounding lawn for lighter use.)

It should also be noted that standard Seattle Parks maintenance of lawns is limited to mowing during the growing season. There is little if any budget for reseeding, weeding, aerating or any other work to rebuild damaged turf.

Experience at Martha Washington Park (MWP)It is illegal to have a dog off leash at MWP, but many people do it and the resulting damage is an indication of the greater damage that would occur if it were a legal OLA.

As GSP forest steward for MWP I am frequently at the park and have been taking data on the number of dogs, on and off leash, at MWP. On my way to or from MWP I often drive by Genessee OLA and count the number of dogs at this OLA. This has allowed me to compare the relative usage of Genessee and MWP for dog exercise. Based on the average count of dogs present in the park at nearly the same

times, Genessee has 13.5 times as many dogs as MWP. MWP is also much larger than Genessee, being 9.6 acres about ¾ of which is lawn. Genessee is 2.5 acres, or about 1/3 the total lawn area of MWP.

Thus, on a per area basis the lawn at MWP is experiencing about 1/40 of the wear that a lawn would experience if it were an OLA.

Yet even at this low usage, the damage to the lawn is significant as the pictures below show. These pictures were taken on January 2, 2016 after November and December rains but after a week of dry weather. If MWP or a similar lawn were made into a legal OLA, the damage would be proportionally greater and it is extremely likely that the lawn would be ravaged and the lawn turned into a giant mud hole.

These two pictures weretaken in the upper area,which is better drained.Paw prints are clearlyvisible in the lowerphoto.

These are also in the upper area.

This photo is in a betterdrained section of the lower area.

As the next picture shows, in the winter there is standing water on portions of the lawn. Like many places in Seattle, there are springs that rise in the park. These areas are exceptionally susceptible to damage as the following pictures show.

This is in the upper area of theSW corner of thepark. An area frequently used by dog owners toexercise their dogs off leash.

These photos areof areas that aresometimescovered withwater, but in anycase muddythroughout theentire winter andspring. Grasscould grow here,but the constantuse prevents it.

Limited-hours UseOne proposal for expanding OLAs is to allow off-leash use in some parks during certain hours. Presumably the intent is that park users in the non-off-leash hours would have an undiminished experience because the dogs would be gone. But would the effect of the dogs be gone?

Assuming that dog owners respected the hour limits, the wear and tear of part time use would, of course, be less than that of full time use. However, this will not reduce usage enough so that the lawn would not be damaged. Considering that any limited-hours approach is going to allow several hours each day for off-leash dogs and that usage will be high during those hours, experience at MW Park and the experience with parks in other areas leads to the conclusion that the lawn will be damaged and park users will be forced to walk through the mud and occasional forgotten dog piles that are left behind.

ConclusionUnderstandably, some dog owners would love to exercise their dogs on a beautiful lawn. However, the experience of off leash parks throughout the country and the experience of Martha Washington Park shows that the use of lawns as dog exercise areas, even on a limited-hours basis, has serious problems.

BibliographyThis bibliography contains some references that didn't make it into the above text. In addition to notes on lawns in OLAs, there is an exceptionally good document from the city of Ann Arbor, MI that describes their entire process of OLA development, including the public process, guidelines for OLA development and data from other parks districts.

Guidelines for Establishment and Maintenance of Successful Off‐Leash Dog Exercise Areasproduced by" Program in Veterinary Behavioral Medicine, Center for Animals in SocietySchool of Veterinary Medicine, Davis, CA

"Turf. This is a favorable substrate if the location is appropriate and the municipality is able to undertake fairly intensive maintenance. If turf is planted, it must be adequately maintained to help prevent degeneration into dirt or mud, which includes irrigation, mowing, and weeding. Some parks areclosed periodically for reseeding/resodding the grass. Feces may be hard to detect in turf, especially if it is long. "

Dog Run Surfaces, Friends of Schuylkill Riverhttp://www.phillyfido.org/connector/dog-run-surface/

The article describes Schuylkill River Dog Run's experience with wood chips as a dog park surface andtheir eventual conclusion that K-9 (artificial grass) was a preferred surface. Stone and quarry fines werealso considered. Lawn was not considered, but this reference is included because K-9 is a surface that parks should consider as it improves the health and maintainability of OLAs.

Recommendations and Guidelines for Dog Park Site Selection, Design, Operations and Maintenance

http://www.a2gov.org/departments/Parks-Recreation/play/Documents/Recommendations%20and%20Guidelines%20for%20Dog%20Park%20Site%20Selection%20updated%204-10-15.pdf

This document discusses the process that Ann Arbor, MI, went through in it's discussion and development of dog parks and provides data collected by the Ann Arbor Parks Dept on dog park practices and public processes across the country. The document is extensive in its scope and seems to be in response to the same sort of pressures that Seattle Parks and Recreation are under. I highly recommend the article.

The document does not contain many references specific to lawns, but supports the conclusion of other departments that lawn areas must be rested in order to recover from dog use:

"If possible, lawn areas should be rested periodically to allow the turf to recover. ""Turf Maintenance: Design of dog parks should permit resting grass to allow turf to reestablish."

Barks and Recreationwww.a2gov.org/departments/Parks-Recreation/administrative/documents/pac/Dog Park Article.pdf

Also from Ann Arbor, included because there are comments about Portland and other areas in Oregon, including the guidelines that Portland uses. There is a long discussion of surfaces both in Portland and Douglas Co (high desert). Some quotes:

"more recreation managers are choosing to rest or reseed this turf [in OLAs] because of the damage that dog paws and waste can do."

"In our area [Douglas Co], if you don't maintain the grass, it never has an opportunity to recover. So in about 3 or 4 months you've basically destroyed it..."

"Douglas Co splits the two dog parks in half, letting one side be used until the maintenance staff views it as almost at the point of no return before switching the off-leash use to the other section. Even Portland, with it's wetter climate, takes a similar approach with its grassy areas. 'It's incredibly important to let the grass rest and close part of the dog park to regenerate the grass seed,' Ryan [program specialist Portland Parks Dept] said."

Anecdotal material from the San Francisco Peninsulahttp://home.earthlink.net/~ejlmp/dpd.htmlWritten by an indivudual Eric Leopold about his 10 year experience with dog parks on the San Francisco Peninsula.

"Surface: Decomposed Granite (DG) is the most durable dog park surface. DG needs no water except to manage dust in high wind or high dog activity. Water requirement for this is less in the rainy season. The park in Belmont has a 3 times per week schedule for watering...

"Redwood Shores Dog Park, the new dog park in Burlingame and Mitchell Park in Palo Alto have areas of grass surface. In these parks, grass is losing in the dog vs. grass arena. Mitchell's grass is now thin all over...A grass border surrounds the DG area further removed from the entrance gate. The grass in the small dog [area] is doing well but even this small dog section has surface damage. In the big dog area, the grass is doing well around the edges. On the negative side, complaints are many about small flying insects in the grassy area in this park during the warmer months... The loser in this surface category is the all grass San Bruno Dog Park where the grass surface is swamp like in the rainy season from poor drainage.

...

"Grass is incompatible with dog urine... A grass surface in a dog park will be OK if the park is as large as an 18 hole golf course and has similar foot traffic. Devots[sic] are not as bad as dog digging and golfers go in the bushes rather than anywhere on good grass like dogs."