Borough Residents Pulling for Dog Park

When Barry Mellor moved to Conshohocken with his wife in 2009, he noticed two things: many borough residents would take their dogs for walks, but didn’t have a specific place to take them.

“It’s something my wife and I have been talking about for a while,” he said. “I think there is a big demand for someplace in the area to let dogs run.”

Since his initial realization, Mellor has become one of the core members of the Friends of a Conshohocken Dog Park, a group of borough residents who are working to establish a recreational dog park in town.

Raj Gupta, another one of the group’s members, said that the FCDP organized after a request to borough council connected a group of like-minded residents.

“We met in June, 2011 and from t here we talked about what it should look like and how we could move forward,” he said.” It’s grown very organically and its definitely picking up momentum around the borough.”

Since that first meeting, more and more borough residents have spoken in favor of a dog park, Mellor said.

“Over 350 have signed our petition [as of October],” he said. “Every time the word gets out, we here back from more and more people. There is a huge demand for this.”

Gupta isn’t surprised by the group’s support.

“Walk around Fayette Street on a nice night and almost everyone has a dog with them,” he said. “You really don’t have an option in Montgomery County for a dog park. People are going to Ambler or to the Main Line to walk their dogs.  There have been attempts to being a park to the area before, but I don’t think there has been a group that will see it through like this one will.”

Since the group’s inception, the FCDP have circulated petitions in local businesses, established an online presence with social media and its own website and even organized a dog-friendly fundraising “yappy hour” at

The group received an additional boost in the Fall when the borough council accepted a business plan from the FCDP and pledged to help work with the group to build a park somewhere in the borough’s mile of property.

While the group has sketch plans and ideas for how the park might look, Gupta says the park’s location is still up in the air.

“The park would most likely be built on existing borough-owned property,” he said. ”As we get closed to determining a specific spot, its important to make sure we aren’t taking away from other community activities, but there are only a handful of places that would make sense.”

Mellor said that, despite the group’s successes, things still need to be figured out.

“Right now, we’re working on fundraising,” he said. “We’re hoping to get a combination of individual and business donations, as well as some partnerships and sponsorships.”

Still, the members of the FCDP are hopeful that a new dog playground will be in place before too long.

“I think the group would like to see a park in 2012,” he said. “It’s definitely a lot of hard work, but we think this could be something that really draws people to Conshohocken.