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| - This remains our most-frequented dog park, mainly because it's the closest one to the house! It's usually busy enough that you'll run into a few other folks during your romp around the park. There is an outer loop on a dirt trail through the "prairie" that takes about 20 minutes to complete. ("Prairie" is in quotes because it doesn't usually get the opportunity to grow into a long-haired grassland because it gets mowed down periodically.) Besides the outer loop, there is an inner loop of packed gravel with a few other criss-crossing trails connecting it.
Nice things about this park: two parking lots, off access roads to the east or west of the park. The East entrance is found by driving down Expo Way (longer driveway but a closer walk to the gate from the car.) The West entrance is found at the end of Wingra Creek Parkway. Here you will cross a small footbridge to access the park. Another nice feature of this park is that there is actually running water!!! Yes, just outside the East entrance there is a water fountain and hose for filling up the numerous jugs people have donated. Finally, there is a bike trail near the park so that means Lola gets to come too! Yup, she gets to walk with the Mr outside the park (grumpy pooch isn't allowed in) while Leo gets to run around inside. There also are at least five gates into the park allowing you to escape at various points along the way.
The biggest downside of this park is that it closes periodically for Alliant Energy Center events. BOOO! The prairie gets mowed down occasionally (ugh!) so they can use the dog park for overflow parking (i.e., Midwest Horse Show) and/or the park is shut down on weekends where they have 5k runs going through here (i.e., Blacklight run). Unless you go regularly and see the signs announcing the park will be closed, you are likely to show up on a weekend and will be sad and depressed to realize you are now stuck with a drooling, excited, beast in your backseat with no outlet. The city website does have closure dates listed so I would recommend checking that out: http://www.cityofmadison.com/parks/parks/park.cfm?id=1353 NOTE: there are points where they say park is "open" but the main park is NOT open, they are referring to a much smaller strip of land on the West side (turn left off the footbridge) that is fenced off along the river, along the bike trail.
Despite my frustrations with the periodic shut-downs, we will keep going back mainly because it is 3.4 minutes away from home.
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