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The importance of dog parks as public spaces is undervalued. This narrative series will explore the current dog park paradigm and suggest improvements. This will be accomplished by discovering how dog parks strengthen our relationships with our dogs, neighbors, and the natural world around us.
This show is brought to you by As It Should Be Productions, the creators of the Dog Save The People and Dog Walk Meditation podcasts. The episodes are narrated by author Jenna Blum.
Welcome to Dog Parkology, a show that
looks at the concept of dog parks
through our relationship with dogs,
with each other, and with the land.
In the previous episode of the
series, we explored how dog parks
can build communities that are more
tight knit, safer, and welcoming.
The land we all share, our
environment, is not always considered
as much as it deserves to be.
Many people seem to have lost their
excitement and appreciation for nature.
We take it for granted.
The constant pull of distractions
from our devices has made it more of a
challenge for people just to go outside.
The digital age has presented endless ways
to be tempted into virtual consumption.
Whether it be social media,
streaming services, online shopping,
and more, the attention economy
competes for every spare second.
Even when we do go outside, it can be
hard to focus on what's in front of us.
We still might be distracted by fear
of missing out on what's happening
elsewhere, or just feeling like we're
not being productive with our time.
As our world has changed, we as
humans have grown disconnected
from the natural world, but the non
human species around us, like our
dogs, don't share our blind spots.
And in this way, we can
take a lesson from our dogs.
I love being plugged into The
communication of the natural
world, the trees talking to the
wind, and the wind talking to the
birds, and the birds talking to
my dog, and the dog talking to me.
I'm part of that circle.
This is outdoor writer Annette
McGivney, who has found that
dogs are a transformational key
to unlocking our environment.
Only for the most recent
sliver of our species history
have we been living indoors.
When I'm in nature, I'm actually plugging
in epigenetically to what my body needs
most and my nervous system needs most,
even though we've forgotten about that.
Humans, it seems like we're
prone to disconnecting ourselves,
even if we're in nature.
You're not even noticing the beauty
of where we are, you're just So
in your head and totally caught
up in talking to each other.
So having a dog with me helps to
remind me how to enjoy nature.
When you're with a dog, you're
like, what is in those pine needles
and look at that bird and that
squirrel and what's over here.
And so you're totally in the moment.
I want to focus on the beauty and
my dogs show me how to do that.
When we are in nature with
our dogs, We are the students
and the dogs are the teachers.
It's up to us to take the initiative
to tap back into the natural world.
For dog parkology, we are looking
not only at officially designated
dog parks, but a broader definition.
Anytime you step outside your home with
your dog, you have an opportunity to
find points of connection along the way.
Whether you're going for hikes in the
woods or running on a beach, we're not
limited to the traditional fenced in
areas as long as you're making sure
to be responsible and respectful of
others when having your dog off leash.
These kinds of dog parkology
moments can make you think about
your surroundings in a new way.
Even when you're living in a major city.
I think we have this concept of
nature as being synonymous with
grand, open, majestic spaces.
You ask people to think of
wilderness, and they think of
Yosemite, and Yellowstone, and Zion.
You don't think of your garden or
like the street around your house.
There's wilderness there too.
This is Ed Young, a British
American science journalist, whose
coverage of the pandemic in the
Atlantic won him a Pulitzer Prize.
Ed's recent book, An Immense
World, examines the sensory
realm of different animals.
While writing the book, he got a new dog.
The experience of having a canine
companion helped Ed understand his work.
My dog is a Corgi.
His name is Typo.
He's two years old.
Whenever we go for walks, it's almost
a sort of meditative experience.
Typo likes to sniff.
He likes to explore.
Dogs use their nose to adventurously
investigate the world around them.
Every creature perceives the
world in its own unique way.
And that way might be very, very
different from what we humans experience.
I think a lot of dog owners, because of
our tendency to anthropomorphize, see in
their dogs a reflection of themselves.
And that's totally fine.
But I think that misses
something profound.
I know that Typo's experience
of the world is not my own.
I know he senses things very differently.
He thinks about the world
in a very different way.
And I love leaning into that difference.
It makes me constantly curious about what
he's thinking or what he's perceiving.
Typo enriches my life.
It makes me think about the
world in a more spiritual way.
A lot of my work is informed by these
values of curiosity and empathy.
I think both of these are muscles that
you can learn to flex and, you know,
thinking about Typo and the way he senses
the world allows me to flex both of them.
They think that through these
informed imaginative leads, we
can be closer to nature, even in
our normal, everyday existence.
While being out with Typo, who's
able to recognize so many types of
information through his nose with
heightened perception, it has changed
the way Ed looks at his environment.
And I think that's important because if
we don't feel that connection to nature,
if we only think of it as a remote and
distant thing that we might tap into on
a once in a lifetime vacation, then We
don't feel the impetus to care for it if
we don't feel a connection to something.
I don't think we feel our responsibilities
as stewards and guardians of it.
And I hope that all of our interactions
with the animals closest to us
make us feel a little bit closer
to the entire natural world.
Even in the smallest details and moments,
among trees, among plants, other animals,
we then develop a greater sense of place.
If we can bridge this gap to the
living world, we can open our
lives in new and unexpected ways.
When lockdown happened in 2020, there
was this mass re evaluation, I think
done by a lot of different people, about
what is my relationship to this place?
This is Anjali Rao, who we met in
our last episode, an architectural
journalist and critic whose work
explores connections to land.
We saw people leaving cities.
deciding that the relationship that
they had to the city was one of
amenities characterized by access
to museums and concerts and theater
and shopping and not necessarily by
a relationship with the land itself.
I did the re evaluation
too, living in Chicago.
I had my trusty 100 year old dog
moving through the world with her
in a way that could be slower.
We could take longer walks and it
was a different way of experiencing
what it was like to even have an
animal to reevaluate our relationship
amongst an increasingly wilding world.
What I found was a connection like
observing unusual flowers and weeds
that so often just get mowed over but
were neglected during the pandemic.
Those types of things re
enchanted me with living here.
It was Anjali who introduced us to
the concept of re enchantment, which
inspired the theme of this episode.
Both Matthew Gandy and the essayist
Jennifer Woolf write about this idea that
through a different type of ecological
relationship with land, we re enchant
people with the city around them.
People tend to see parkland as
being productive when it's really
well manicured, beautifully
cultivated public gardens and parks.
The kind of Eurocentric understanding
of, we go to the gardens to be
flinners and to look at people.
Oftentimes, landscape architects, city
officials, they think of productive
in terms of an anthropocentric lens,
that we center human experiences.
They are productive because they give kids
a place to hang out and sit in the shade.
They're productive because
they host family reunions.
But a lot of parks also encourage
all types of ecological urban life.
They host wildlife like
birds and foxes and possums.
I bond with my neighbors when we see
raccoons and skunks and everyone's
screaming or running away or you're
letting your little dog loose in this
garden and chasing him around and
letting him romp through the flowers.
In Millennium Park in Chicago, there
was a family of foxes that moved in.
People were so excited.
It was too cute, just
heartbreakers, all of them.
We're so excited when this happens,
and yet we do everything in our
capacity to ensure that doesn't happen.
And so when we think about the
consequences of neglecting animals
and the animal presence in our cities,
there are so many benefits to thinking
about dogs as being an intermediary
between the more wild species.
Dog parks can be a piece of public
infrastructure that accommodates
that idea of non human residents.
This can bring out our greater empathy
for our ecosystems and all living
things with which we share them.
Designing for non human species
can be one of several mechanisms
that can upend our extractive
relationship with land and property.
It's a way of removing ourselves
from the conventional ways of
understanding what cities are for.
It's actually reframing that completely.
It's this way of reorienting yourself
in the world, understanding you're
a part of something much bigger.
It's a moment of clarity and a moment
of connection for a lot of people.
That isn't just like we need social
spaces, but actually we need to have
a totally different relationship
with the land that houses us.
Dog parks offer people a way to
appreciate and connect with the
reality of your ecosystem in
a way that is more meaningful.
All of these things re enchant us with
the places that we live and beckon us to
love them and beckon us to care for them.
We started this series with a
historical mention of how the name
of the first dog park in Berkeley
paid tribute to the Ohlone tribe.
who had been on the land originally.
In Marion Schwartz's book, A History
of Dogs in the Early Americas, she
writes, Native Americans understood
that even though dogs resided in
the human camp, they had a close
kinship with coyotes and wolves.
Because of these relationships, dogs
occupied and operated on several levels.
They connected the wild and the tame,
and they joined nature and culture.
Dogs have a magical ability to remind
us that we are part of the natural
world and should strive to protect it.
Time with your dog at any type of dog
park make us feel more connected to
and accountable to the earth around us.
Thank you for listening to
this episode of Dog Parkology.
I'm Jenna Blum, your narrator.
This show was created by As It Should Be
Productions, the creators of Dog Save the
People and Dog Walk Meditation podcasts,
with executive producer Scott Benaglio.
And producer and editor, Jack Summer.
Be sure to check out the entire season
of Dog Park Allergy by following
the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can follow us on social media
at Dog Park and Dog Save the People.
You can.
Visit our website, dog park college.com
to learn more about the show and to buy
custom designed merch like our T-shirts.
If you know of any great
dog parks in your area.
or you've created your own dog
parkology moment, you can email us
at dogparkology at gmail dot com.
We'd love to hear about your experience,
and if you've enjoyed listening to this
episode, please share it with a friend.
Enjoy a trip to a dog park today,
or wherever you go with your dog,
to appreciate nature, meet others,
and make a better life together.