Kudos to Banfield
for a Safe,
Highly Practical Dog Park

Privately-owned dog park is innovative

You want a safe dog park?  This is likely the safest one you can find in Oregon, and possibly elsewhere. And it's definitely got some great new improvements to make users safer and likely to have more fun!

Banfield, The Pet Hospital celebrated the grand opening of Banfield Dog Park on August 25th -- its their first dog park anywhere in the country.  It's at the site of Banfield's Glenhaven Campus at NE 82nd & Tillamook (technically 8000 NE Tillamook St) in NE Portland.  At the grand opening ceremony, hundreds of folks and their dogs got to try out the facilities before membership rules took effect.

Not only is it unusual to have a public dog park that's privately owned, it's even more unusual to have the high standards for safety, control and aesthetic detail available here.

Here are some good things to know about this park:

It's nearly 1.7 acres, which means each of the four sections is about a third of a rectangular acre.

It has double-closing "sally-port" entrances that require the first door to close before the second one opens.  This minimizes chances of doggie escapes.

There are two easy-to-use dog wash areas with spray hoses and ramps available to use when exiting the park if desired.

Access is by key card provided to members.  Membership is free, but requires:

1. submission of an application form,
2. a signed waiver form,
3. current vaccination records for rabies, parvo, distemper, lepto, giardia, bordetella and lyme 3, 
4. dog must be on flea/tick medicine, be de-wormed, and be on heartworm preventive medication,
5. dog must be microchipped, and
6. scheduling at a later date and passing a behavioral assessment by a PetsMart Pet Training Instructor.

The behavioral assessment period lasts 30 minutes and involves six dogs.  Each dog is assessed to ensure they are not aggressive toward dogs or people, and they are not toy or food protective.

To get an application for membership, contact the reception desk from 8:30-5pm Monday-Friday, 8000 NE Tillamook St, Portland.

Comments or questions?  Email them to dogparkcommittee@banfield.net

Folks and their dogs are checking out Banfield's new shallow dog play pool with fountain during the Grand Opening event.  Water is deep-well filtered and does not use chemicals for purification -- a healthy and tough standard to find even among swimming pools for people.

There are four separate fenced grassy areas, of which two are shown here.  There are two on either end of the park, with the pool in the center.  The entire park is also fenced with taller fencing.

This "you're in control" feature alone makes the park tremendously worthwhile to visit.  Finally, there's somewhere to have a space to use that YOU can limit to your own dogs when you need to!  Terrific for folks with timid dogs, overly rambunctious ones, or kids and fragile people (like I was when I had an injured knee and playful dogs kept trying to bounce off my leg).

See additional photo on Off-Leash Areas page.