Our Mission

Friends of San Luis Obispo City Dog Parks (Friends) is working with the City of San Luis Obispo, and other interested parties, to create and maintain safe, clean, off-leash enclosed dog parks within the City of San Luis Obispo. Such facilities will promote social and recreational opportunities for the citizens of San Luis Obispo and their canine companions. Our efforts are paying off as the City is building its first enclosed dog park at Laguna Lake Park! It is estimated to open in mid to late March, 2025! Two other enclosed dog parks at Emerson Park, and the new Righetti Park. are in the queue but are lagging from initial estimates (now more likely in 2026 and 2027) (click on specific park for latest update)

Fundraising by Friends will continue to help the City secure additional, unfunded dog park elements. Our current campaign has targeted construction of agility/obstacle equipment for the Laguna Lake Dog Park. We are currently working with Pacific Beach High School to construct such elements, including so far, a dog walk, a pole weave, an A frame and a 3-level platform for the small and big dog areas. All monies raised by Friends will go towards such amenities. 

Another component of our mission will be education. We strongly believe that an important element towards the success of any dog park is to ‘know when to go’ and protocols to follow at the park. There are circumstances when you might not want to take your furry friend to the dog park. Click here for information on this subject.

And then we have our important volunteers. Once our new dog parks are built, we will work with the City to recruit dog park ambassadors to help City staff on regular maintenance. Click here if you want to know more about volunteering and getting on a future volunteering list.

Upcoming Events

Currently, Friends will be participating in the City’s Grand Opening of the Laguna Lake Dog Park in March (no specific date yet set), so stay tuned!

Get Involved

There are several ways to get involved in this worthy cause, as follows:

1.       Become a Member of our Meta/Facebook working group (Friends of SLO City Dog Parks) at Friends of SLO City Dog Parks | Facebook. Here we keep our members updated on the latest news as well as ‘calls to action’ if we think letters to or attendance at certain public meetings will help get our point across.

2.       Volunteer – while we do not yet have a park to maintain, click here to request to get on the list so we can hit the ground running when the three dog parks are built over the next couple of years.

3.       Donate – Any monies donated will go towards those important amenities that were not included in the original construction work. Click on https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RYP673WH4XZHU

for donations or visit our webstore for products at Friends of SLO City Dog Parks.

About Us

We are a seven-member Board (one vacancy currently), as follows:

John McKenzie, President
Brian Reynolds, Vice-President
Kelly Heffernon, Treasurer
Jennifer Dobbe, Member-at-Large
Drew Neilsen, Member-at-Large
Lisa O’Brien, Member-at-Large

 Contact Us

For questions or comments, please contact John at johnnimac123@gmail.com

Or write us at:

Friends of SLO City Dog Parks , PO Box 15604, San Luis Obispo, CA 93405

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