Dog owners eagerly
await Moanalua ‘bark park’
Elderly residents can't wait for a "bark park" to open in Moanalua Community Park this summer, Betty Kamida said.
The new park would allow them to exercise their dogs without having to walk them or drive long distances to other leash-free locales, said Kamida, who heads the project for the Moanalua Gardens Community Association.
"My dog is 80 pounds, and I can't keep up with him to give him the exercise he needs," she said.
"We've been predicting (it would be open) in the next 60 days" since October 2001, said Ron Jones, president of the Moanalua Gardens Community Association, "but we're hoping it will be sometime in July."
The park is in an underutilized area across Puuloa Road from Moanalua Middle School. The city Department of Parks & Recreation has undertaken the work, which should cost about $100,000, he said.
Grass must grow, plumbing must be installed for a drinking fountain and administrative paperwork must be completed before the park can open, he said. Adding to the delay have been problems with rain damage, the theft of sod and modifications for the disabled, Jones said.
Kamida said the park would be the only one for unleashed dogs in the Moanalua area. Currently, only two dog parks exist in Honolulu, at Diamond Head and at the Hawaiian Humane Society in the Moiliili area.
Not only Moanalua Gardens' 1,100 homeowners, but dog owners "from all over the island can't wait till it opens. They tell me it would be really nice, so they don't have to drive all that way to Honolulu," Kamida said.
"There's no place else (other than in Honolulu) you can let your dog run off-leash. They need their cardiovascular exercise just like humans and, being pack animals, crave the interaction," she added.
The Moanalua dog park will be about the size of the 1.46-acre Diamond Head park, which has become a place where owners can share resources and education about dog matters, she said.
"When a dog is socialized and exercised, he's a better neighbor. When he's cooped up, he gets neurotic, anxious, barks a lot and tries to escape. So everybody benefits (with a dog park)," she said.
Volunteers are needed to act as rangers to make sure rules at the new park are followed, and may call Kamida at 839-5336.
The park was officially nicknamed Ilio Hau'oli Paka ("happy dog park") by Jeanine Shimomura, a third-grader at the Moanalua Elementary School, who won $50 in a "Name the Dog Park" contest held by the association.
