Take my hand and follow me to a place where dogs can play/explore, and truly be themselves! What if I took you to a place where dogs of all different breeds and sizes could roam about aimlessly and socialize with each other right before your very eyes? My friends, we have arrived at the Portsmouth Dog Park, located on 50 Smith Road, Portsmouth RI. While you may have difficulty locating the site’s location through phone apps or GPS, the location has made its way to Portsmouth’s town map, so that in case of an emergency, Police officers or Firefighters can locate the establishment with ease.
Meet Bunny and Cally. Ms. Miller is currently the treasurer of the dog park committer and was the chairperson/founder of the dog park when it began in 2013 with the process. The dog park was officially opened to the public in 2017 to honor her previous dog Oscar, who was killed by a neighbor’s dog that was on the loose. The park would both serve as a memorial as well as a building block for the community to bring their dogs together.
When asked about improvements to the park that she would like to see become a reality, Bunny’s list was both insightful as well as concise. One major improvement that Bunny had mentioned she would like to add to the park are lights for the winter season that would allow owners to bring their companions either after work or at a reasonable hour in the late afternoon, early evening.
“Right now dusk is 430. And for people who work, they can’t use the dog park during the week, so they use it during the weekends, and as a result, it overcrowds the park during the weekends, so we would like silver lighting that we can have turn on from 4 until 8 during the winter months.”
Aside from this, Ms. Miller would also like to see astro turf applied to the ground to give it more of an appeal to visitors, as well as expansion of the property that would allow owners to walk their dogs within the property if they so choose.
For the full interview with Ms. Miller attached is the link: https://soundcloud.com/user-339728695/full-interview-with-bunny-miller
Meet Jane Regan and her dog Willoughby. Ms. Regan serves currently as the chair of the volunteer committee. “I think the dog park has come a long way, I make friends here because we all love animals, we’re all invested in keeping the park clean, open, etc. It has become both a people community and dog community.”
When asked what worries her or “taboos” pertaining to the usage of the park, one of Jane’s answers was that she’s concerned that people bring their animals that are “too young”, and that the lack of having your animal up to date with shots can potentially impact surrounding dogs with sicknesses such as kennel cough. “It puts your dog at risk, and I don’t like that.”
Jane’s role however as chair of the committee also comes with monitoring the nature of the park and making sure that visitors adhere to the rules. “Our job is to fill the water containers” Jane laughed when asked about duties regarding dealing with tensions among owners and their dogs at the park. “It requires kind of a balance of what people want us to do vs. what we should be doing, which is really just enjoying the dog park.”
Many times during the interview, Jane commented on how perfect the “chemistry” was that day. “Just one dog with an attitude problem, no matter the size, can change the chemistry totally.” What exactly did she mean by this?
‘It’s like a giant playground.” Jane said when asked to describe the dog park. “But the one thing that brings us together is that we really love our animals, and everyone loves their dog and thinks their dog can do no wrong, and for the most part, they’re right!”
Although it’s silly, Jane feels as though the behavior of visitors changes when she’s around. “I feel the need to do make sure the rules are being followed so that they don’t close us down.”
Who am I? What can I know? And based on what I know, how should I act? To conclude this blog post, I will tie these last three questions into my conclusion, and what this project has taught me.
I think that this project ties into the core questions as well as my major in that as an investigative journalist, my duty is to make sure other people’s stories get told, and to bring to light voices that deserve to be heard.
What originally started off as a research project on improving dog parks evolved into a study of human behavior with people using the facility with their pets. I learned over the last few days observing and studying the manner that people act around their dogs that not only do people TRULY love their pets, but also the degree in which people assimilate their animals when interacting in public.
I learned that similar to the tricky question “what came first the chicken or the egg”, the relationship between humans and dogs either shape when living, interacting, communicating, etc. with your four legged friend, or people simply pick their dog out based on what they see in themselves which brings about this level of compassion.
“I would not have survived Covid, without my dog” said Jane when asked about the impact that Willoughby had on her.
I am an engaging member of my community seeking to bring to light a story that needs to be told beyond the scope of Portsmouth, RI. Based on what I learned, I know that people will do anything for their dogs (such as build a park in their honor) because we exhibit the same level of compassion that dogs share with us, and finally the way we should act is to tell the stories of these amazing moments/messages that become buried in Presidential elections, and pandemics.
The Coolest Place on the Internet 