The fun flies when dogs and their owners gather at off-leash parks

At about a dozen off-leash parks in the greater Seattle area, they run, they chase, they bark, they strut, they squat, they socialize and they sniff out the opposite sex.

And you should see some of the things the dogs do, too.

Scratch the surface of any off-leash area and you'll find out these free-ranging places are as much for the human species as the canine.

"These parks are not built for dogs, they're built for people," says Judy Trockel of Redmond, founder and board member of SODA -- Serve Our Dog Areas. "This is what people like to do. Every weekend I go, 'Oh my gosh, all these people are having such fun.' This is a park filled with kids and families and babies in strollers, all ethnicities, all socio-economic groups. It goes beyond just getting your dogs exercise."

They're good places for that, too, though, as well as for meeting and mingling.

"I have friends from all over, people I've met at the dog park that I wouldn't have known otherwise," says Trockel. "They are wonderful connection places."

They're also not bad pickup places for single people.

Says Dewey Potter, Seattle parks spokeswoman: "We started these off-leash areas in the mid-'90s and some called them the singles bars of the '90s."

Off-leash areas sprang up around here in the 1980s as a response to city and county leash laws. They were spurred by pet owners who believed that a dog is healthiest and happiest when his or her paws are regularly allowed to prance. Marymoor Park in Redmond became one of the first official off-leash areas after dog owners howled when King County developed a master plan for the park that would have required all critters to be on leash.

Seattle's off-leash area program now includes nine parks with designated zones where Rover can roam. The city of SeaTac recently opened an off-leash area at Grandview Park. The city of Edmonds allows dogs to run free at the south end of Marina Beach Park. Whidbey Island has several off-leash areas, including beautiful Double Bluff Beach.

By all reports, every one of these areas is exceedingly popular.

"It's unbelievable," says Trockel. Serve Our Dog Areas, which was born as Save Our Dog Area when the Marymoor closure loomed, estimates that 600,000 people and a like number of animals visit that park every year.

"There are people who won't bring their dogs to them because they think they're too dirty or their dog is too small or shy, but overall these parks are a smash hit," says Potter of Seattle's off-leash areas.

You'd think problems would run rampant at places where numerous dogs and people come together in one big pack. But by and large, the operation of these areas is as smooth as the fur of a freshly shampooed Shih Tzu.

Incidents happen, of course, often of a territorial nature. But in most cases, the culprit is not the pet but the pet owner.

MERYL SCHENKER / P-I

Bella, an 11-year-old chow/husky mix, puts on a happy tail at Marymoor Park for her owners Tara An and Mark Broka of Redmond. Not just a party for canines, off-leash areas also are a great place for their owners to do some mingling with their own species.

"Once this guy had a huge Rotweiler mix, about 100 pounds," says Jeff Later of Shoreline, whom we met recently at Marina Beach Park in Edmonds with his wife, Anna Marie Later, and their yellow Lab, Lollipop. "It was trying to play with this little dog. It wasn't trying to hurt it but was all over it. The little dog's owner was trying to pull it away and the owner of the bigger dog was just standing there laughing."

"The little dog's owner was just freaking out," Anna Marie says.

Such incidents are the exception.

Says Trockel: "It's not chaos. It works. Dogs are social animals. If you put them in a neutral environment, they get along."

To experience these places from a dog's-eye view, we visited three popular off-leash parks with our faithful Lab, Maddy: Marymoor, expansive at 40 acres; Sand Point Magnuson Park in Seattle, well designed and equipped; and Marina Beach Park in Edmonds, which offers a nice open beach on Puget Sound.

Being a retriever, Maddy is a task-oriented dog, and she padded around happily with her retrieving dummy in her mouth. She tolerated the other dogs well and engaged in some consensual backside sniffing, but her primary preoccupation, as usual, was finding water so she could do what Labs love most: swim.

The only friction arose when other dogs tried to take her dummy, which prompted angry growling on her part. Only one succeeded in such thievery, a beautiful but brutish chocolate Lab named Angus, who was finally led away on leash by her apologetic owner.

MERYL SCHENKER / P-I

Ah, it's just like being a puppy again. Rusty, a 3-year-old English bulldog, joins some furry acquaintances for a mud bath in a Marymoor Park stream. The Marymoor off-leash area in Redmond was one of the first to be created in King County.

All three of the parks were terrific. Marymoor offers five access points to the Sammamish River and lots of open space for roaming. Magnuson is large enough at nine acres, offering a small water-access area on Lake Washington and at least two watering and rinsing stations -- a nice touch. Edmonds is an open, but not huge, saltwater beach lined with driftwood with a gorgeous view of the Olympic Mountains.

"This is my favorite off-leash park," Later says of Edmonds. "It's the nicest beach."

Added Anna Marie Later: "When the tide is out you can walk the beach all the way to Richmond Beach."

An improvement project for Magnuson soon will begin and should help eliminate wintertime muddy spots with the use of sawdust.

Water access is important for owners of retrievers, since retrievers love to swim. Unfortunately, many off-leash parks offer no water access. It's an environmental issue.

MERYL SCHENKER / P-I

Dalmatians Rainy, left, and Brandon enjoy a day at the beach with Dr. Wendy Levin and her 7-month-old son, Nicholas Liboon, at the Marina Beach Park off-leash area in Edmonds.

"That is pretty controversial," says Potter. "It's an uphill climb for us because of our environmental requirements. We sort of sacrifice some things for those off-leash areas. Dogs are rough on the surface."

Potter notes that Seattle's beaches, both saltwater and fresh, are habitat for the federally protected Puget Sound wild chinook salmon.

Maintenance of these areas is another issue. Volunteer groups such as SODA and the Seattle group COLA, or Citizens for Off-Leash Areas, maintain most off-leash areas. They ask pet owners who visit to help the cause.

That starts with behavior at the park -- yours and your dog's.

One of the most heinous things any dog owner can do at a park is leave their dog's droppings. If your dog squats, you'd better, too, to pick after the animal. Plastic bags specifically for scooping are available at the off-leash area, as well as garbage cans for proper disposal.

Yet evidence on the ground indicates some dog owners fail to scoop.

Another important off-leash area rule is that your dog should respond to your bark. You should have some measure of voice control over your animal.

"Our most important rule is, do stop bothersome dog behavior immediately," says Trockel. "Off-leash recreation is not for all dogs."

Trockel suggests your pet's first visit should be on a less-crowded weekday.

If your dog is large and aggressive, or small and timid, it might not be a good candidate for an off-leash area.

"Always carry a leash with you," she says. "Try to relax and enjoy it. If you or your dogs are starting to feel too stressed, then leave."

Most pet owners, however, will enjoy watching the antics of Buddy, Molly, Muffin, Willy, Cooper and Scooter, Cisco and Zeke.

You might see some nice dogs, too.

Here's the poop

Seattle off-leash areas :
For details, see www.cityofseattle.net/parks/parkspaces/YoDogs.htm. See also the pages of Citizens for Off-Leash Areas at www.coladog.org. You also can contact that group at 206-264-5573.

Marymoor/Grandview parks: Off-leash areas are detailed on the Web pages of the group Serve Our Dog Areas at www.soda.org. The group's hot line is 425-881-0148.

Island County: Dog parks are described at the Web site of FETCH! -- Free Exercise for Canines and Their Humans -- at www.whidbey.net/fetch. You also can call 360-321-4049.

Copyright © Seattle Post-Intelligencer