The city of Cottonwood is looking into the idea of updating outdated dog park rules at the Riverfront Dog Park and any future projects.
Parks and Recreation Manager Jak Teel presented a few ideas to the Cottonwood City Council at its Sept. 7 meeting. The current dog park rules in place were adopted in 2010. Since then, changes in state law and local ordinance have made it so that the current rules are either out of compliance or outdated.
One of the main rules currently out of compliance has to do with breed restrictions. In 2016, Arizona made it illegal to ban certain breeds from dog parks. Currently, the city of Cottonwood does not allow pit bulls in dog parks.
“One of our dog park rules does not meet the state law that prohibits discrimination based on breed of animal, and one of our dog park rules currently discriminates against a breed of animal,” Teel said.
One rule Teel said they want to change in order to be consistent with town ordinance is the number of dogs allowed. City regulations allow a person to own up to three dogs, while the dog park rules only allow someone to bring in two.
“This means if you want to bring all three, one’s got to sit in time out in the car while you take the other ones in. Clearly, we don’t want that,” Teel said.
Other proposed changes include clarifying that all dogs must be licensed and vaccinated, and collars and tags must be visible to others at the park. It also enforces the rule that all dogs must be leashed until inside of the park and owners must have a minimum of one leash per dog. They also hope to change the rule that does not allow children under the age of 12 inside of the park, instead making it so that dog handlers must be at least 16 and anyone under age15 can go to the dog park if accompanied by an adult.
The new rules would also no longer ban choke, prong or spike collars in the park and would not require owners to fill holes dug by their pets. The new sign displaying park rules would also be condensed and redesigned to be more “friendly” and readable.
“It helps match the brand that the city is going for: a little bit more friendly, a little bit more user-friendly, readable,” Teel said. “And it’ll help update some of those rules that are outdated and needing to be brought back time and time [again].”
The council will revisit the issue at a later date to vote on approving or denying the changes. Should they choose to approve it, the cost for the project should be minimal as it would only require new signs and would be paid for by money already designated in the budget.
The council expressed general support for the updates. Mayor Tim Elinski thanked Teel for Parks and Recreation’s work to update the dogpark rules.
“I applaud your efforts to clean things up, make the sign a little more user-friendly, clear, and cleaning up those old ordinances,” he said.
