New Canaan’s popular dog park got an upgrade recently designed to eliminate a hazard and improve the use and beauty of the facility.
In the past, when their owners have sat on the half-dozen steel benches scattered throughout the Waveny dog run, some dogs “would lay under the bench and they would dig holes,” according to Recreation Director Steve Benko.
“The volunteers were constantly filling holes in,” Benko told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission during their most recent meeting, held Nov. 11 via videoconference.
So working with the Department of Public Works, officials had the town’s go-to paving contractor install four-by-eight-foot asphalt pads under each bench in Spencer’s Run, Benko said.
They “give a nice area under the bench where you’re sitting and the dogs don’t dig big holes, so we eliminated a hazard to our visitors to the dog park and it enhances the quality fo the dog park,” he said.
“It really enhances the quality of the dog park,” Benko said.
There are now about 775 members of what the town website calls the “Spencer’s Run Dog Socialization Area” at Waveny. Residents pay $25 for the first dog and $15 for each additional dog registered to use the park, while nonresidents pay $40 for the first dog and $15 for each additional dog. Members of the dog run are assigned a pin code to enter. Created in order to keep track of who uses Spencer’s Run and safeguard the town from liability, the registration system was put into effect about eight years ago.
Commission Chair Rona Siegel said the new bench pads in Spencer’s Run “are really a huge hit.”
“They’re not just for mud and digging and things like that,” she said.