“Right now, Mount Pleasant is a dog park desert,” said Eugenia Serrano, one of the organizers of the Dude Chilling Dogs group. “There are no dog parks within reasonable walking distance of us.” The City of Vancouver says it plans to offer most residents access to an off-leash dog area within a 15-minute walk. City maps show Mount Pleasant’s closest areas to a park are at Trout Lake or Hinge Park in the Olympic Village. “I can not do that [walk] twice a day,” said Marty Hallat, a dog owner who lives near Dude Chilling Park and is involved in the campaign. A map of off-leash dog areas in the City of Vancouver, from a 2017 city report. (City of Vancouver) He says it’s frustrating trying to balance his dog’s needs with compliance, risking a violation every time he lets his pug, Rhino, run off. “There doesn’t seem to be a real solution being proposed here,” he said. The lobbying group wants to see a leash-free area on the east side of Mount Pleasant. They see Dude Chilling Park as a central location, but are open to other parks in the area. Rhinoceros the pug. His owner, Marty Hallat, wants an off-leash area where Rhino can play in the Mount Pleasant area. (Emma Djwa/CBC) Off-leash dog fights have increased in the community. A parent committee at Mount Pleasant Elementary School placed signs a year ago on the school perimeter asking dog owners to keep their dogs on a leash when using school grounds after repeated complaints. “There’s already tension in our neighborhood,” Serrano said. “We need a solution because it’s an immediate problem now and it’s only going to get worse when there’s more density in our neighborhood.”
Underserved area
In 2017, the city’s People, Parks, and Dogs strategy identified Mount Pleasant as the most underserved neighborhood for an off-leash dog district. Two new off-leash areas are planned, but located in parks west of Cambie Street, intended for residents in west Mount Pleasant, Kitsilano and Fairview, which were also identified as high-needs communities. In an email to CBC News, the Vancouver Park Board says it doesn’t have the budget to meet the amount of demand for off-leash areas, but hopes to address the issue more in its capital plan from 2023. For dog owners like Hallat, that’s little consolation. She says it’s been six years since she moved to Mount Pleasant and she hasn’t had a nearby dog park for Rhino. “My dogs live from 12 to 15, so that’s literally half of his whole life,” she said. “How much longer do we have to wait?” Until then, Hallat and others say they will focus on raising the issue with people considering running for park board and city council seats in the fall.
