Rotary Park

As a dog owner of one year, I have come to find that this is my favourite dog park in the city. There are many reasons. First, it is only a short walk away for me (which will not apply to most people). Second, even though the park isn’t huge (like southland), there are so many good dogs to socialize with. The atmosphere is what really makes this park great. The regulars here know all of the dogs and are very welcoming to new ones. Also, the owners are very good in that there isn’t really a dog to be worried about. The second an incident happens, the community bands together to protect their pack. Always a good time here.

This is my favorite dog park in the city where the little homie can run and fraternize with the other pooches. It’s a really popular spot, there are dogs of all sizes chasing each other (or their own tails) playfully on the grass. The people are friendly too as I always manage to strike up conversations with other dog owners there. In addition, the view of the city from Crescent Heights is so beautiful, especially in the evenings near sunset.

We visited this park with my dog Miki after having breakfast in Bridgeland. I’m trying to visit new parks so this one was next on my list! Initially, I was a bit concerned because the park is above the hill from Centre St, but as soon as I figured out there’s a fence at the bottom I felt a lot better (Miki likes to play a game where she runs up/​down hills and back to me — while she’s fairly well behaved, any owner will attest that dogs have their crazy moments and I would NOT want that moment to end up with her on Centre St!)
At first we thought it was just the square piece of land near the kid’s play park, but when we realized there are paths near the edge of the hill and further sound, it ended up being quite a nice walk, lots of exercise.
One downside is having it back right onto the kid’s park, where there’s no sort of divider. Miki likes people, especially children, and since there weren’t many dogs to wear her out on this walk, she did bound into the kid’s park once looking for someone to play with. She came to me once I called her back, and she is super friendly so I wasn’t worried about that, but if any kids had been afraid of dogs, or if it had been a less friendly/​patient dog, it could be bad news.

I love this park for a few reasons. It has a great view of the city core and is good for photos, there’s enough foot traffic that you feel safe at night and the free daytime parking zone along 1^st Street allows for enough time that you can park your car and walk downtown for a meeting, errands or some fun as an alternative to wasting time finding parking downtown and paying for it. The bonus (for some, not all) is that you can get an extra burst of exercise if you take the shortest route from the park to Centre St, which is the stairs.