Close Encounters: Magnuson Dog Park

I started writing this piece on May 31, 2023.

In which we visit Magnuson Off-leash Dog Park in Seattle

It was one year ago today that my beloved Arwen passed away. So it is not unusual that I have fur babies on my mind. I buried Arwen with a newly planted willow tree, and I found a great deal of comfort, sitting and looking out the window of our breakfast nook room, knowing some part of her was there with me.

Arwen was with me on my travels around the country and the world for nearly 14 years, and I still feel her absence acutely and with a heavy heart. Less than a year later, I now find myself sitting and writing (once again) in a new environ, the willow tree I planted uprooted by the new owners of a home I also long for.

Arwen joined company with other beloved animals. In the yard were several of my husband’s cats, as well as his husky Blue and our husky malamute Okami, who remains firmly rooted in my heart and soul even though we knew each other for only five months.

It was this past December when my husband and I left our home in a very unique corner of Arizona called the Granite Dells. Our home was literally built into the large granite boulders the area is named after.

I pitched my best plea to hold onto our home, which was firmly denied due to the risky nature of trying to rent from a distance and the reality of housing prices in Seattle, which were exorbitant. If we wanted to buy a house instead of renting—and the monthly payments would be about the same—we had to sell the house.

Sigh.

My husband bought this house about two decades ago, and he raised his kids there. I was introduced to the Dells house as a PhD student at Prescott College in 2010.

The house was surrounded by enormous Cottonwood trees, lining a creek that flowed year round. During my two brief tenures in the house—about a year and a half each time—I watched Black Phoebe perch on the electric line outside the windows of my music room.

We lived at the end of a quiet road, which bordered green space. Trails literally led from our house in all directions. You could walk up and over rocks for miles and miles, following the rail to trail Peavine route and the many trails that branched off of this trail. There were roadrunners, quail, several species of woodpeckers and wren. Hummingbirds, several more species of towhees. Nature everywhere. Quiet, beautiful, serene. Cactus. Blue sky. Sunshine.

There serenity came to a fairly abrupt end once you drove out of the Dells. Turning onto Highway 89, you were blasted by a very aggressive, reactive energy with a side of very conservative politics. During our most recent stint in the house, political signs warned against the dangers of critical race theory and bumper stickers promoted stolen election rhetoric, recommending that we “Make Voting Great Again” in 2024.

One of the places this reactive energy could be felt was the local dog park. My first stint living in Prescott, we brought three different huskies to the dog park, one after another. First my husband’s husky Blue, who passed away in the spring 2015 quite suddenly fromy cancer.  Then our adopted husky malamute Okami, who passed away very tragically from a tick-borne disease after the vet forgot to test for ticks. When I suggested it might be a tick disease, he responded, “Oh I thought I tested for that. Oops.” Or something to that effect. Clearly, I am not over it. That dog was my soulmate on my four legs. After Okami came Naih, the puppy husky, who my parents “borrowed” when we first moved to Brussels so my husband could find a place to stay in order for the Belgian Embassy in Los Angeles to review my visa application. When we found a place that would allow dogs six months later and asked to have Naih back, my parents told us they didn’t think she would like Belgium…

I have had some interesting experiences at the Prescott Dog Park. Prescott is an interesting place because it brings together so many unique and very disparate sectors of the population. And there dogs, of course.

In Prescott, there are “cowboys” and ranchers. Maybe they are real cowboys, and there is a cowboy poetry festival. My skepticism is perhaps unwarranted. In addition to the cowboys and ranchers who call the town home, there are many who are drawn each July to one of Prescott’s claims to fame, the world’s oldest rodeo each year. We generally steer clear of downtown during that time because of the traffic. Of course, now living in Seattle I laugh to think of complaining about traffic in smalltown Arizona. How quaint.

There are many people who have retired to Prescott. It has a relatively mild climate year round. It can snow in the winter, though with climate change the winters have been pretty even keel. Summers get hot but not nearly as hot as Phoenix or Tucson further south. Because Prescott is about a mile high in elevation, the temperatures are at least 20 degrees cooler than Phoenix year round. Some people claim the environment is more beneficial for those with allergies, though I can tell you from personal experience that juniper season can be pretty rough.

Prescott is also a recovery community, a place people go to “dry out.” There are many recovery centers around town, some more reputable than others.

There is a fairly large contingent of people with a military connection. There is Embry-Riddle University, which has a flight program where many people train to become military pilots. There is also a large VA hospital, so there are many vets.

Then there are the people who people that Prescott is the site of the true Vortex, as opposed to Sedona. So lots of crystals and mystique. There’s a large artist community, musicians who seem to play mostly cover and country songs at local bars.

And of course there is the institution that brought me to Prescott all the way back in 2009, Prescott College. This brings the more earth-based, sometime hippie folk. Left-leaning political views.

People from each of these communities within a community come together—intersect might be a better word—at the dog park. When I first moved to Prescott in 2014, I visited the dog park pretty frequently up until we moved in August 2016. I went at different times, eventually discovering there was a schedule people followed. This seemed derived in part in order to keep people (and their dogs) separate. At least, this was what people would tell me when I would bring our succession of huskies to play. People would even point out people (and their dogs) to avoid.

If you have seen the Disney movie 101 Dalmatians, there is a fantastic scene near the beginning (it might be the very beginning sequence). It’s a street scene with one person at time walking with their dog, and it shows how much the dogs resemble their human and vice versa. It’s really quite brilliant and spot on (no pun intended).

I notice this all the time, and I really enjoy the phenomenon. Something that also became apparent to me on my visits to the Prescott Dog Park was that dogs, being incredibly empathic beings, also tend to take on the energy of their human. For example, a Vietnam vet with acute PTSD would visit the dog park with his very reactive and aggressive cattle dog. Mellow people tended to have mellow dogs.

Most visits were benign, but there were enough incidents and unpleasant politics that I eventually stopped going as often. I did take our puppy Naih to the park before we shipped her off to my parents, never to return (I am over, I promise). I vividly remember talking to a fellow wearing a cowboy hat about our upcoming move to Belgium,

I would never move to Belgium without my guns, he told me.

How does one respond to a statement like that? I think I either said something like, “Ok” or resorted to nodding my head.

To be fair, this was not long after the metro bombing in Molenbeek, so if he followed the news he might have been nervous about going to a foreign country with terrorist violence. My father-in-law was initially nervous about our move for the same reason, though he did not suggest that we bring firearms for protection.

Here’s what you got to do when you get to Belgium, the man continued. You’ve got to get someone here to mail you a big box with a Stetson hat in it. Then make sure you get a whole bunch of them Belgians around when you open the box.

That was the extent of his advice. I wasn’t quite sure what to do upon removing said Stetson from the box. I think I was so nonplussed by the story that I didn’t think to ask for follow-up. I did share the story to many people in Brussels, especially our Belgian friends, who found it endlessly entertaining.

I never did have someone send me a Stetson either. Maybe next time.

When we moved back to Prescott in the summer of 2021, I brought our adopted husky Atticus to the dog park a few times. I eventually stayed closer to home, following the many trails around our house where I could walk him off leash for hours, rarely seeing another human soul.

Now thoroughly ensconced in Seattle, the dog park is, ironically unlike Arizona, the only place I have found in the city as yet where I can walk my dog off leash. Magnuson Park, built on what appears to have been a once military base, boasts an enormous dog park within its many regions. There is nowhere you can walk without seeing another human soul, but the dog park portion of the park is large enough that you can walk for a half a mile from the parking lot to Lake Washington in a relatively peaceful, if not blissful, state.

It’s a 15 minute drive to Magnuson Park and one of the few parks I have found with very few stoplights and almost no traffic backup. I am so triggered by the traffic and city noise when walking around our house that I find even an urban park to be a pleasant relief. There are no cars driving around, and we can spend over an hour walking in a 3.5 mile loop from that starts and ends with the dog park. This means an entire mile off leash and a respite from pulling and ire for both of us.

It regularly amazes me that there are any tracts of land set aside for green space in a city that is so packed. On overcast days, Magnuson is a great place for getting light into my system. On rainy days in the winter, I often take Atticus to Saint Edward State Park, which is a forested loop with more protection from the elements. When there is sunshine or even a moment without rain, I just want to drink it in with my entire being.

Something I have found while exploring Seattle now for nearly six months is that people are exceedingly friendly. The dog park is no exception. People don’t just say hello and acknowledge my and Atticus’ existence. They want to chat, laugh, and exude niceness. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s very different from my experiences at the dog park and anywhere but Flagstaff in Arizona. People were very nice and dog enthusiasts in Flagstaff.

Here in Seattle, nearly everyone is Flagstaff nice. Nearly. We have had a few strange interactions with folks at the dog park and walking their dogs around Magnuson. One fellow was giving his dog treats and got quite bent out of shape when Atticus went over for one (because he’s a dog and likes treats) and his dog became food aggressive. Atticus responded, and the guy started swearing at me about my “f’ing dog,” etc. etc. I went and got Atticus and tried to walk away, but every time I let go of his collar he ran right back. Because. Food. He’s a dog. I asked the man (nicely, I thought…at least, I didn’t raise my voice) if he could please put the food away so I could get Atticus to leave. He resumed swearing at me. It was a special moment, and now nearly every time we go to the park Atticus walks to the bench to sniff around just in case there might be food again.

One other experience happened just this morning when Atticus and I were walking along the part of the trail I call “Crow Alley” because it’s a wetland in the winter and crows gather in the trees and to bath and walk around in the standing water.

This morning, an older couple approached us with two small dogs. The man had one dog in a little wagon. The woman was walking in front with a small dog. Just as Atticus was preparing to say hello (aka, when they were close enough to say hello), the woman informed me that her dog was not friendly.

Ok, I said. And I proceeded to reign Atticus in. Before I had a chance to get him closer to me, the woman, who was still approaching us with her dog, snapped.

Really, I’d rather you didn’t say hello.

She continued walking, saying something about big dogs being nasty to little dogs, which I found kind of hilarious and definitely a projection since generally it is small dogs that tend to be overly snippety. She did not move over or give us any extra space.

It was a weird situation that left me feeling irritated. First, if your dog isn’t friendly, give the person walking toward you a bit more warning. Or stop and move to the side so that person can walk around you. Don’t keep walking directly at them and get all snippy. Her tone made me feel like my dog had done something wrong. Had she been kind and even asked for help/cooperation, I would have been more than happy to oblige.

In my mind as we kept walking, I thought of all kinds of things I could have said in response. The first being, “Patience, woman!” She didn’t give us any chance to move aside.

These experiences are few and far between, thank the dog park gods. Every now and then when something does crop up, I just take a few days off and walk Atticus elsewhere, letting the energy settle before resuming our visits.

Something new to me at the dog park in Seattle is the presence of dog walkers. These are super dog walkers, some of them with an entire pack of up to 10 dogs that follow them around. I have seen people with many leashes wrapped over one shoulder like a dog-themed toga, fastened together by heavy duty carabiners. Most are pretty good with the dogs. There is one that is a strange and not particularly friendly character. When I was walking past and one her dogs pooped and she was on her phone, I tried to get her attention. She walked directly at me and did not step aside, so I stopped and tried to get her attention to let her know she had missed a spot. She snapped at me and kept walking. When I returned from our walk the spot was empty.

There is one fellow who the dogs clearly adore. They follow him like an alpha pack leader god. He seems to always have tan dogs, but I am not sure if this has anything to do with anything. Maybe tan dog are more mildly tempered. Maybe he is a dog whisperer.

When my dad was here for a recent visit, we visited Magnuson several times, remarking on the joy the dogs exuded. We particularly enjoyed seeing the happiness in the dogs all wet and scraggly after visiting their little section of beach along Lake Washington. I was reminded of one of my dad’s favorite lines from Don DeLillo’s “Underworld” about joyful children as “little painted faces pumped with being.”

These were furry faces, pumped with being, and my heart fills every time I see them trot by without a care in the world.