name: Sean LeBeaouf, with Goose
age: 31 profession: police officer location: nola dog bark
There are dog parks, and then there’s the NOLA Dog Bark: a pastoral, 4.6-acre canine
heaven on Earth. After passing through two entrance gates, dogs have a choice: they can make new friends on a central knoll while their owners mingle and relax on plastic chairs, they can walk the quarter-mile paved loop, or they can run the obstacle course, exploring the puddles, before wrapping up with a shower from their owner on their way out. Smaller dogs needn’t feel intimidated: they’re allotted a spacious, fenced-off area of their own. The park even maintains a website that dispenses training tips.
“This is almost like our backyard. I come here about five days a week, usually in the evenings. It’s part of our routine. Goose is a very ADD dog—so we come here to relieve some energy. We do the same thing every time: it’s two laps around, but we’ll stop at different places. She likes to play with the ball. She loves the pools. Occasionally I’ll run her through the obstacle course to establish obedience. And then she gets a bath at the end. You see the same faces here. I know a lot of people by their dog’s name. Running into people outside of here is always awkward. I’m like, I know that I know this person from somewhere ... Every time you come out here something
exciting happens. Maybe someone you know gets a new puppy. The new dogs show up and see this place. Most dog parks are the size of someone’s backyard, but then dogs come here and they’re like, ‘This is so large!’ It would be the equivalent of being home-schooled and then going to Mardi Gras. Like, you’ve never known anyone else but your own family, and then all of a sudden you go to a place where all these people are happy and going crazy. For three years, everyone was waiting for
[the dog park] to open, and I’m thinking, It’s a dog park—why is it taking so long—it’s just putting up a fence! But when it finally opened, it was huge, with all of these amenities. It really was worth the wait.”
42 · LAND&PEOPLE · SPRING/SUMMER 2013
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