Kirkland a Finalist in On-Line Contest for Off-Leash Dog Park Funding

Regardless of whether it can manage to retrieve the $100,000 prize in a national online contest by the company PetSafe, a group of Kirkland dog owners is padding toward an October opening of the city’s first off-leash park.

However, winning the contest would make the ambitious plan by the Kirkland Dog Off-Leash Group—KDOG—a whole lot easier. So it is howling for local hound fanciers to vote daily for Kirkland, one of 15 finalist cities in the “Bark for Your Park” contest.

“It sure would make for nicer park than we anticipate,” said Jean Guth of Kirkland, president of the all-volunteer nonprofit group. “It’s really important. We need people to vote every day. You can vote on Facebook and on the PetSafe web page, so you can vote twice every day.”

The city with the most online votes wins. Here are the two sites:

• www.barkforyourpark.com
• www.Facebook.com/PetSafeBrand

The Kirkland City Council last November unanimously approved creation of a dog park on city-owned open space in the Totem Lake area, near the intersection of 113th Avenue NE and NE 120th Street, adjacent to and just south of Heronfield Wetlands. The city bought 7.5 acres of the property as open space in 2005, and two acres of it will be used for the park. See an earlier Patch story about the park here.

But the council stipulated that no city money would be used.

So KDOG has been working on raising money ever since, applying for grants and holding fundraisers. Guth said the group has applied for grants to Petco and Home Depot, and will have a booth at Kirkland’s Go Dog ,Go! festival July 23.

“Things are going really well and we should have some good news to announce soon,” she said.

A donor has offered to buildd fences for the park and Dooley’s Dog House and The Grape Choice are hosting a fundraising wine event at The Grape Choice on Aug. 11.

With or without a contest victory, KDOG plans to mount work parties at the site in September and October and hopes to open the park in the fall. Says Guth: "We’re on schedule for an October opening.”