With spring just right around the corner I wanted to write about one of my favorite springtime activities, dog walking.  Right now I take the dogs out only long enough to slip on the ice and get extremely muddy.  When the springtime roles around we go on lengthy walks and enjoy the great outdoors.  While this is good for one’s healthy living, dog walking is also a great tool to promote a healthy community. Below are some great resources on animal services and methods to promote a healthy community through dog walking.

• This article describes the County of Manatee, Florida’s effort to promote a 90% save rate for their animal services. Volunteers visit their off-site adoption center throughout the day to walk the dogs around the town.
• Govloop.com posts about how organizing walks with your community is a great strategy for you to get out and engage your community. You could organize a city dog-walking day to accomplish this.
• This Governing article tells how Detroit residents are trying to raise money to build a permanent dog park near the site where the former Detroit Tigers baseball stadium use to stand.
• Sharon A. Lawrence, a public policy consultant based in Austin, Texas, has added several pieces of content to the Knowledge Network, on the topic of animal services. The document Win-Win Strategies for Communities in Managing Animal Services provides great tips on how to properly develop and manage animal services.  Part 2 of Win-Win Strategies reports on successful animal service programs from around the country.  A particularly interesting one is the WOOF program in San Francisco, California, in which former homeless people will be matched with service animals, and these owners will be trained on how to properly care for the dog (one of those skills being dog walking).
• In an essay about infrastructure, author Peter Kageyama writes that jurisdictions that have citizens with strong emotional attachments to them generally are more successful. This article states that a local dog park, where citizens can walk their dogs, could be a good strategize to accomplish this.  
• Governing contributor Rick Baker writes how establishing walking trails and dog parks can help stitch together and uplift entire cities.
• One of the more interesting resources is this one from the Knowledge Network outlining how a local park in Gilbert, Arizona, is using dog waste to light its streets!
• If you’re interested in innovations in animal services check out this other blog I wrote for additional examples of local programs.

Does your community make an effort to promote dog walking? If so, please post your stories below.

Douglas Shontz

Knowledge Network Intern