By Robert Frank
www.thesuburban.com
Chomedey, Fabreville and Auteuil dog lovers will soon get new parks where their pets can run free.
“The dog runs are part of the plans that the city has for this year,” Laval spokeswoman Nadine Lussier told The Suburban, “due to increased demand to develop new areas where dogs and their owners can play in a safe and appropriate environment.”
The city plans to spend $645,000 on the new dog runs, which will be surfaced with gravel dust, rather than turf.
“We’re planning to try out something more durable, because when many dogs play around and run and stop on the same spot, it’s tough on turf, especially after the winter melt in springtime,” Lussier said.
“If we get the results that we expect, it is possible city council might consider extending the use of those materials to other parks,” she explained. “That’s a decision that is up to city council, the mayor and his team.”
Lussier added that the new parks will comprise separate areas for large and smalldogs.
“Sometimes they play well together, but sometimes the size difference leads the dogs to react in a defensive or aggressive way,” she observed. “Most of the time it is not the bigger dogs that are the problem. Rather, it is the smaller dogs who feel intimidated and react by barking a lot or even biting.”
The new dog runs will be located at Berthaume-Tremblay park in Chomedey, Lisane in Fabreville and Horizon Jeunesse in Auteuil.
Laval has already invested $900,000 to construct its six existing dog runs at Binet, Lausanne, Laval West, Lausanne, Rossignol, Corbusier and Pie IX parks, and budgets about $7,000 over a five-year period to maintain them.
“You can find the opening hours for each dog run on the city’s web site,” Lussier said in an interview. “They’re not open 24-hours-a-day because barking dogs could disturb the residents of adjacent homes.
The French-only information on dog can be found by searching the city’s web site for the keyword ‘chiens’.
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