Places to play scarce for your unleashed pooch

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Palm Beach Post

By Rachel Simmonsen

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer


De Caddigan can't seem to find a playground where her little Finnegan is welcome. So come playtime, she takes her 15-month-old to the homes of friends and family or on walks through green markets miles from her Port St. Lucie home.

"You have to get creative when you don't have parks," Caddigan said. "It would be like parents not having a park to take their children."

Finnegan, you see, is a West Highland white terrier.

"He is my child," Caddigan said. "He's just the delight of my life."

But as many dog-lovers will attest, he's puppy non grata at many parks along the Treasure Coast.

Unlike Palm Beach County, home to Pooch Pines and the Dog Park at Lake Ida Park, Martin and St. Lucie counties have virtually no parks or beaches where dogs can roam leash-free.

"It's a conversation that comes up on an almost daily basis in my store," said Terri Ann Palumbo, owner of the Barkery pet boutique in Fort Pierce, who plans to campaign soon for a dog park in St. Lucie County.

Palumbo moved to the area from New York City, where she said nearly every park had a fenced-in area for dogs to run free while their owners chatted with one another, catching up with neighbors and making new friends.

"It was just such a great experience — for the dogs and the owners," said Palumbo, who owns three dogs.

On the Treasure Coast, dogs can run loose at Walton Rocks Beach near the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant, but they're banned from other St. Lucie County beaches, county spokeswoman Linette Trabulsy said.

In Martin County, dogs are allowed at any county beach except the four that are guarded: Stuart, Jensen Beach, Hobe Sound and Bathtub beaches. But even at unguarded beaches, Fido has to stay on a leash, recreation Superintendent Richard Blankenship said.

Dogs' days are numbered at the 3.5 miles of beaches at the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge, where officials this month decided dogs might interfere with refuge efforts to lure back nesting shorebirds. The ban takes effect next spring.

As for non-beach parks, dogs are allowed on leashes in Stuart and St. Lucie and Martin counties.

But in Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie, dogs aren't allowed at any parks, leash or no leash.

"A lot of dogs in this area, they really have nowhere to socialize," said Delphine Anderson, a certified dog trainer in Port St. Lucie.

As pleasant as it is for dog owners, socializing is key for pooches, Anderson said. Interacting with other dogs helps them overcome fear of their fellow Fidos.

"They're not as aggressive, and they won't lunge or bark at other dogs when they see them," Anderson said.

Plus, it's just good exercise.

"The most common food we sell is obesity food," said Dr. Billy Harper, a veterinarian with a practice in Port Salerno. "They're all becoming couch potatoes, too."

Harper and a band of like-minded residents helped persuade Martin County commissioners in April to sign off on an $860,000 dog park near the intersection of Kanner Highway and Cove Road. But the 4-acre park likely won't open before December 2007, said Kevin Landry, the park planning and development administrator.

Another planned dog park, at Tradition in western Port St. Lucie, was set to open this summer. But permitting delays pushed back construction of the three-quarter-acre fenced-in turf park, which will feature separate sections for large and small dogs, fake fire hydrants, a leash rack and a dog-wash area. Now planners don't expect the park to open until the end of the year, said Tony Cardinale, landscape manager for Core Communities, Tradition's developer.

In the meantime, Palumbo plans to start working on a proposal for a dog park in central St. Lucie County. Walton Rocks Beach is great, she said, but there's not a lot of shade there, and some dogs are afraid of the ocean.

She and a "whole list of customers" want St. Lucie commissioners to build a dog park like those south of Martin County, such as Mizner Bark in Boca Raton. The fenced-in park, with 1 acre for small dogs and 1 acre for large dogs, includes water fountains, wash stations, benches and several stations where dog owners can take waste bags to clean up after their pooches.

The park, which has been open nearly a year, has become one of the city's most popular.

"On the weekends, the parking lot's full and they're parking all over the grass," said Keith Noelk, parks superintendent for Boca Raton.

Harper is convinced dog parks on the Treasure Coast will prove just as popular.

"I think you'll see a lot of people who don't even own dogs go to this park," he said, referring to the planned dog park in Martin County. "People will go just to watch all the dogs."