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Brookhaven set to open first dog park

BY ERIK GERMAN | erik.german@newsday.com

1:04 PM EDT, April 24, 2008

Brookhaven's first dog park is set to open Saturday in Middle Island -- just don't forget your Pooch Pass.

Reversing a decades-long policy banning dogs from all town parks, the Brookhaven Town Council created the canine preserve opposite Artist's Lake on Middle Country Road where bearers of special town-issued dog IDs can walk their dogs unleashed. The rest of the town's parks remain off-limits to dogs.

Pooch Passes can be obtained from the Brookhaven Town Clerk's office at Town Hall in Farmingville. You'll need your pet's most current license, proof of a rabies vaccination and a fee of $25 if you're a town resident, or $45 if you're a non-resident. Alll dogs must be spayed or neutered. Adding additional dogs to the pass costs $5 per pet.

The four-acre park will include a 3/4-acre fenced corral for smaller pups and a three-acre enclosure where the big dogs can run.

"It's just tremendous," said Councilwoman Connie Kepert, who led the push to have the new park built. "I have gotten so many e-mails and phone calls and people are really ecstatic about this."

Rules for the new park require licenses and collars for all visiting dogs, place a limit of two dogs per person per visit, bar female dogs in heat from the facility and -- this might go without saying -- insist that all owners diligently scoop poop.