I (shamefully) rarely check in here, but I wish I did more! My name is Megan and I live in Pittsburgh - I do a ton of crafting, but I do it at home and only sell the occasional item online when I can emotionally part with it.
Anyway - My husband and I just adopted a dog from the Westmoreland County Humane Society. He's now 10 months old, and is a 30 pound mutt - possibly a combination of Beagle, Collie, Australian Shepherd and some kind of Spaniel. He's young and energetic, but unfortunately our backyard is small and not completely fenced in, so we can't let him run around all willy nilly. Despite the two 45 minute walks a day, he still could use some extra play time and he could definitely use extra interaction with other dogs. My parents' dog is not well socialized and is therefore dangerous around other dogs and even small children - I don't want Dexter (our dog) to turn out the same way. Because he's new to us, he doesn't yet reliably come when called so I'm uncomfortable taking him to an off-leash dog park.
Here's my proposal:
Animal Friends, a local Pittsburgh Shelter, has a field that they allow people to rent during certain times - $5 for 1/2 hour. It's a large completely fenced in field with a few pieces of agility equipment, water for the dogs, etc.
They also have their own organized doggie social hours. This sunday (April 26th) at 10:00 a.m. they have a 1 hour period where you go, pay $5, and let your dog off leash with a bunch of other dogs. All owners are present as well as shelter volunteers and dog trainers. We've been there twice and it was a great experience. However, they only do their organized doggie social hour every other week.
We've rented the field before and Dexter has had a great time running around, but he's not motivated to keep up the exercise and fun because he only has us to play with and he's not a retriever - he has no will to chase tennis balls or frisbees.
I am super interested in setting up my OWN doggie play group for the weeks between the Animal Friends social hours. They allow up to 10 dogs on the field when you rent the field yourself, and if you were interested, we could bring some crafts - Knitting? Sewing? and sit on the field in beach chairs and let our dogs play.
If you're at all interested, shoot me an email at Megan.Lapp@gmail.com. We will definitely be at Sunday's Doggie Social Hour, and if you want to meet us and Dexter, you could be there too - If things go well, we could reserve a 1/2 or an hour for the following weekend.
Let me know what you think!
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