A Walk on the Woof Side: Exploring Piedmont’s Dog Parks

Sean B led our walk this past Wednesday and shared the summary of it below with me including some appreciation of him in it:

Last Wednesday the Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group had a strong turnout of 43 walkers at the Exedra, but only two K-9 best friends for a fun “Dog Days of August” walk that focused on them.

Sean B led the walk and said his favorite place in Piedmont is Piedmont Park. He and his husband go there nearly every day to walk their dog, Pip. (Unfortunately, Pip, being the lazy dog that she is, preferred to stay in bed rather than join the group for the walk.)

Many cities have dog parks but often they are just fenced in dirt lots. In Piedmont, we have lovely green spaces where dogs can run around, sniff and meet other dogs while their people walk in the woods. Sean led the walkers into Piedmont Park and about halfway down its trail told the group how these parks came about.

The group headed down into Piedmont Park and Sean told them the first part of the dog park story. Piedmont was incorporated as a city in 1907. When its parks were first being developed in the early 1900s, they weren’t designed as dog parks but as landscaped civic parks and natural creek corridors but the wooded areas were natural places for people to walk their dogs. Back then, dogs didn’t have to be on a leash. The expectation was just that they be kept “at heel” or under control. After World War II, dog ownership increased, and people started developing regular routines and informal dog-walking groups.

In 1970, Piedmont adopted its first leash law, requiring dogs in public areas to be on leash. That reflected growing concerns about safety as the city became more populated but people still wanted places where dogs could run around and play.

The walkers took a group photo under one of the park’s massive eucalyptus trees and Sean said that the story would continue in Dracena Park. They continued down the hill, across the top of Witter Field, up the steep 100 block of El Cerrito Avenue, and down Magnolia and upper San Carlos Avenues. They descended a set of stairs in the middle of the block and stopped on lower San Carlos where Sean shared more information.

He had wondered why one block of San Carlos is split into upper and lower streets. There are a few other streets in Piedmont and around the Bay Area with similar designs, and the basic answer seems to be practical. The hillside is especially steep on San Carlos so, rather than cut a large, flat road through the hill leaving steep areas in front of the houses, the street was split in two. That meant there was less excavation and less disturbance of the hillside. It also meant that, instead of having steep driveways and steps to get up or down to the houses, the houses have relatively level access to the roads. The slope is absorbed in the steep median between the roads which also creates the nice greenspace.

Next the walkers turned down Oakland Avenue, crossed at the crosswalk at Jerome Avenue, and took Cambridge Way and Ricardo Avenue to Dracena Park. The group skipped a loop around the Dracena quarry which has been turned into a beautiful green space for time, and instead continued to the off-leash area where Sean finished the dog park story.

In 1974, Piedmont designated four places where dogs could legally be off leash: Blair Park on Moraga Avenue and parts of Piedmont’s Dracena and Linda Parks. The interesting thing is that Piedmont didn't create traditional fenced-in dog parks. Instead, the City chose natural areas that were already being used by dog owners - places with trails, trees, and relatively little conflict with athletic fields. The basic idea was to let people and dogs enjoy these natural areas without putting in a lot of infrastructure.

In the 1990s the City added fences in Linda Park for a dog park but then closed it in 2025 because of erosion and water-quality problems. After habitat restoration it reopened but it is no longer an off-leash dog park.

Up until the year 2000, anyone could let their dogs off leash in the dog parks but starting that year, Piedmont added a permit system. Now, to allow a dog to be off-leash, the City asks owners to purchase an off-leash permit and provide proof that their dogs are licensed and vaccinated. The idea is to give people the freedom to exercise their dogs while encouraging responsible ownership.

One thing Sean came across in doing his research is that some dog walking groups have included many of the same people for decades. So the parks aren't just places we pass through - they're places where communities form. Sean said he sees the same people and dogs over and over and has made some good friends walking Pip. He pointed out that the informal dog walking community is sort of like Walking on Wednesdays. It’s about people getting out, walking together, and creating connections with neighbors.

After the walkers expressed their thanks to Sean for creating a fun and informative walk, they finished it by heading out through the top of the park, walking along Dracena Avenue, up Blair Avenue and Hillside and Bonita Avenues back to Exedra Plaza.