They are a committee of four and they are a determined dog-loving committee of four women who saw their plans for an off-leash dog park in Estevan become a reality on Saturday afternoon.
Although the park has been in use unofficially for a few weeks, it now has a solid fence line, a double-door entry system and about 1.5 acres of parkland for the dogs to exercise within while owners relax at picnic tables enjoying the shade while watching their canine friend and being ready later to pick up after it, if necessary.
Team leader Jennifer Gervais and the team members accepted a cheque from Dennis Bode, representing Affinity Credit Union’s Trust committee, in the amount of $7,000 to help advance the already-planned expansion.
“We are wanting to have a couple of park areas, one for smaller dogs, one for the larger dogs,” said Gervais. On Saturday, in spite of the huge influx of dogs of all kinds and sizes, there were no serious incidents as the dogs, as well as the people, made the rounds, getting to know one another and making new friends and renewing old acquaintances.
“It was our dream to get a park in town for our dogs,” said Christine Wock, a local therapy dog owner and trainer, who is a committee member.
“We started fundraising in 2014, held all kinds of events to get this started and the Woodlawn Regional Park people have been very generous and gracious in giving us this space to work with,” said Gervais, pointing to the grass and tree-filled space on the first approach to the regional park, near Doug Third Hall.
“The big thing, we wanted to have a dog park for our citizens and our dogs that wouldn’t be a tax burden on the general population and we were able to do that, thanks to the generosity of the community,” said Gervais.
The event also featured a demonstration of dog training and agility exercises by trainer Shayla Hagel who put her own small dog Dobby through a short agility course while two dogs in training, Kiya and Layla owned by Shawnee Turton and Kelsey Hirsch, showed off some of their newly acquired hurdle leaping capabilities.
