Short Pump Park

This was my first time at Short Pump Park and as I waited on my friend to walk a couple trails, the first thing you see is the very active dog park. One of my favorite places, but first thing I noticed were several large dominating dogs in the “little dog ” area. Even though the owners were there with their oversized dogs and would fuss at them from time to time, they never removed them and took them over to the BIG dog area. Every small dog that came in the area and even their owners were instructed to move this way or do this and he or she ” big dog” will leave the little dog alone after the initial meeting at the entry gate where if they had their big dog where it says bigs then little dogs and their owners would not have to follow special instructions on how to manage getting around the big dogs. Don’t get me wrong, I have trained police dogs for years and am retired now and LOVE large dogs, but all it takes is one misbehaved large dog to get the entire pack to hurt and someone is going to lose a loved one…when rules could have been followed. Park monitoring could help.

This dog park is very clean and well kept. Most of the dogs and their owners are very friendly. My dogs love it here. In the summer there are splash pools and sprinklers for the dogs to cool off in. Lots of room to run and chase balls.

The Dog Park here is amazing. They’ve been talking a lot about dog flus and dog diseases. However, if your dog is vaccinated and you’re careful not to have them drink a lot of the water there you can bring your own water by the way or water bowl. And you don’t let them play with other toys like tennis balls etc. it seems pretty safe you can always socially distance your dogs. It is a wonderful community feel I always take my beverage size dogs in the smaller dog park because they’re terrified of the big dogs. And they always enjoyed it anyways every time I go there, I think of my dog jackson who used to be the Dog Park police, he would definitely referee everybody there and he died when he was 21 and he still went to the dog park every day when he was 18 and onwards. He’s a legend there it is a great community field. It is really clean. Just make sure people pick up their poopy, but most people do adhere to that otherwise they’re going to get marched out. Kids are not allowed under 12 I believe. But there is a park nearby for the kids to play on. There’s also events and Fetch A cure has a wonderful statue there given by a charitable organization that Fetch A cure is a cancer awareness and also cancer treatment for companions In CRISIS. it is important to take note of this beautiful red dog, which is synonymous with the dogs all around town with Fetch A cure. I think it would be ideal to actually have vendors like salty paws RVA ice cream, coming in the summertime or maybe even if they could get permits some kind of coffee kiosk, probably not some food because dogs will go crazy over that. People generally take care of their animals there however, there have been some incidences or people do not pay attention to the dogs, and they have gotten into squabbles, but nothing terrible and then the people usually end up yelling at everybody else while the dogs are cool. All in all it’s a great place it has a cool walking trailcoming up to West Broad Village and they even have a labyrinth in the woods. If you have hound dogs, be careful to hold onto them in the woods. And please bring your poopy bags they’re all along the trail.

This dog park is one of my favorite places. Wonderful dog owners and dogs were there. But just one dog was a large dog and her/his owner dominated the small dog area. That dog was quite aggressive to other dogs and I was afraid that that dog hurt other small dogs. As that dog’s owner said, there is no scale but literally that dog was a BIG DOG. The Park manager’s attention is needed.

We make it a point to stop here when we’re in the area. Our daughter absolutely loves the splash pad. But the playground and dog park are wonderful too. There’s a large open field and a small butterfly garden. The park and splash pad are semi-fenced in. There are a few benches to sit on, but more would be nice. Overall, a high quality park.