Just wanted to write an update. I know it's been a while. The latest is that the Hummer dealership on the front property of the proposed dog park has decided to build a shooting range on their back property! With the economy the way it is, they needed to find a way to make money. I don't have the details of when that will happen or exactly how close to our property that will be, but I'm not sure how safe it is to build a dog park there now. I'll write more as I find out details.

My husband is almost finished with the 6 condos he's building, so when he needs a new project to do (he has nothing else after this), he will be able to focus on the dog park.

Also, my current "project" of being a taxi driver to my son will end as soon as he gets his license and I will have all the time in the world for the dog park. He currently is playing AAU basketball and has out-of-town tournaments every weekend through July. That's my life.

But as I told people at the meeting a few weeks ago, when my husband is focused on a project it will be full steam ahead. He does not stop until it's finished. So once we get underway, it'll get done in no time.

Met yesterday with Mary, Gina, and Heidi's husband Allen regarding the dog park. Had a great discussion, got lots of suggestions and even discussed some of our dogs' "issues." It's fun talking to people when you have a common interest. Makes you "come alive."

We discussed the proposed Kirkwood dog park that never got off the ground thanks to the city. Just like Chesterfield, a dog park was not high on their list of priorities. Allen was nice enough to give me a copy of their proposal, which included a specifications and construction budget, and operations and maintenance budget. It's expensive to build and maintain a dog park!

Some suggestions were to:

1) Call a private dog park owner off of Winghaven to see how he got things started and also to find out how well he is doing membership-wise.
2) Call SCORE (Service Core of Retired Executives) or Small Business Administration to see if they can help me get together a business plan.
3) Set up an email account and get the word out about the proposed dog park with some sort of simple questionnaire to get a sense of the number of people who would be interested. It was mentioned that this obviously would not be an exact amount since people would say they were interested and not necessarily join, but at least I could get some idea.
4) Go to the Maryland Heights dog park to check out their granite dust surface (versus grass).

After the meeting I went to the car wash. A man there had his dog with him and the guy at the cash register was giving the dog treats. While petting his dog and waiting for our cars, I told the man I had just come from a meeting about opening a dog park in Chesterfield. He said, "Yeah, it's amazing how there is no recession when it comes to people's dogs. People will take their dogs to the vet before they'll go to their own doctor." He said, "Have you been to a PetsMart on a Saturday? It's crazy!"

So that was encouraging because I do worry about that. Will people pay to go to a dog park while we're in a recession?

I am meeting with some people from the Meet Up dog group on Thursday morning to discuss the dog park. Now that the warm weather is coming, I'm hoping to kick this in to high gear. I'm really excited about the possibilities. Will update blog after the meeting.

My "girls" just love going to the dog park; imagine if they had their very own!

Meetup Group

I've contacted www.meetup.com and signed up for their all dogs group. There are about 95 people on a list to join an offleash recreation (aka dog park) group. The organizer of the small dog group contacted me when she saw my introduction about wanting to open a dog park. She is going to contact the all dog group organizer about getting some discussion started within the group. It's such a big project, and I need help with getting it going. Someone else gave me the name of a dog lover/attorney who helped her with their dog group. I'm going to give him a call about opening an escrow account.

This is going to be a journal in my efforts to build a dog park in Chesterfield. I thought this would help motivate me in taking the steps to do so, since:

1. We've got the land.



2. We've got it zoned for a dog park.



3. We've hooked up with some dog people - http://www.stldogparks.org/pages/works.html



4. We know there is interest for a dog park to open in Chesterfield.



5. We've contacted an attorney about opening an escrow account, which is going to cost about $1,000.

Now we need to write up a business plan.

Then we need MONEY to open up an escrow account.

Here are pictures of the land where the proposed dog park would be...

Any comments will be read and replied to.