I'm reviewing for the 'active' dog side (the one in the middle- 2 out of 3 are open at all times) since both of my dogs are active even when it's 1PM and over 80 outside. I don't live in the area but wanted to give it a try because of all the hype- and because I might be moving out of the state in the near future.
Was it worth driving 30 minutes on almost 13 miles of surface streets? No. And I'm probably not going to make the effort again because I just wasn't impressed. I was expecting an oasis in the middle of the desert the way people raved about it but it's more like a mirage.
The weird tunnel sculpture thing was cool for about 5 seconds. There's a fancy shade structure on the back end. There are other benches with similar fancy shade overhangs (though not all are covered). There are a few small trees that provide decent shade. There's a people fountain with a dog fountain part and spigot but the water pressure is pretty poor. You're better off bringing in your own water source and bowl otherwise you'll be standing by the fountain the entire time if your dog is truly active and needs a drink of water (especially in the PHX heat).
I must've come close to the end of the season for the middle park because the ground was mostly dirt. I'm not a big fan of grass but I'd honestly prefer either grass or gravel over dirt- it's less messy especially if there's no dog bathing station (I didn't notice one but I could be wrong). This park is also not noticeably cleaner in terms of dog poop than other dogparks I've been to- I still had to watch my step. It's also not much bigger than the dogpark I regularly go to.
There was also an incident while I was there- a woman and her son had 2 boxers that got into a scuffle with 2 different dogs in the 20 or so minutes they were around. The 2nd time, a swarm of people descended and kicked them out of the park. I understand that emotions were running high and they definitely should've been told to leave but considering that a pre-teen child was a part of it, I felt like it could have been handled a lot better. It was literally a live reenactment of The Lottery (you know, that short story you read in high school).
In short, not as awesome as Yelp reviews led me to believe. I did like the super huge "transition" area (when you enter/exit). The dispensers full of legit dog poop bags were also nice- it's pretty rare to have public parks actually have filled dispensers. Not that there's anything wrong with re-purposing grocery bags- better than just throwing them away.