ML Interest Tag: canine

Who Let the Dogs Out? Best Off-Leash Areas for Pooches & Kids

by Helen Walker Green

“Big dogs, little dogs, red dogs, blue dogs….“ Dog parks aren’t quite as happening as P.D. Eastman’s Go, Dog. Go!, but they’re still quite a Dog Party. If you’ve got a pooch and a kid (or multiples of either), we’ve rounded up the best places around the city to spend the day with the fam, tails ‘n’ all. Flip through the gallery to get the poop, er scoop.

Off Leash Area Edmonds (OLAE)

The OLAE is a fave of pooches and kids alike - dogs can take the plunge into beautiful blue Puget Sound, run, jump and play on a driftwood-strewn beach, and try their paw at an agility course. This dog park is on the Whale Trail, so you can do some whale-watching while your pooch is squirrel-watching. There’s a grassy spot nearby, perfect for picnicking, and a small playground for younger kids (with no less than three slides). Afterwards, take those sandy paws and sneakers for a walk along the Edmonds Boardwalk, where kids can spot different kinds of boats and marine life and pooches can spot squirrels.

Good to Know: If you have more than one grown-up on hand, you can also explore the non-dog park part of the beach. You’ll need that extra grown-up to keep an eye on the dogs though, as Edmonds beaches are marine sanctuaries (no dogs allowed).

Insider Tip: If your little one is a train buff, this is the dog park for him or her – a train track runs right by the park and kiddos can get a close-up view of freight trains, the Sounder and Amtrak.

Off Leash Area Edmonds
498 Admiral Way
Edmonds Wa 98020
Online: olae.org

photo: Helen Walker Green

Dog Park Etiquette for Kids
Kids and dogs can have a very special relationship, but please use caution in the dog park. Remember that this is the pooches’ park and little ones need to know how to behave around dogs. Here are some tips to keep everyone in your brood safe and happy:

1. Never bring food or toys to the park (dog toys are fine, or course).

2. Keep a close eye on your kids, especially tots.

3. Discourage your kids from running, dogs may think they want to play chase.

4. Teach your tyke to always ask the dog’s human if it’s OK to pet their dog.

5. Dog parks are not the place to help your little one get over their fear of dogs – there’s too many dogs, and most are in that rambunctious,”Hey, wanna play?” mood. Setting up a quiet meeting with a friend or family member’s mellow dog is a much better place to start.

Where is your favorite off-leash area? Tell us about it in a comment below.

— Helen Walker Green

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15 Blasts From Your Past That Your Kids Will Never Know

by Jo Aaron

Ready to feel kind of old? Your kids don’t even know what Atari means. But they also don’t know the joy of entering three letters into a high score. Check out 15 blasts from your past that your kids will never understand…

A world without Starbucks on every corner
Believe it or not, there was a time in history known as BS—Before Starbucks. If you wanted your coffee to go, you actually had to make it at home and, gasp, take your mug with you. It was a simpler time, but certainly not as spill-proof or convenient.

Photo credit: Piutus via Flickr Creative Commons

Playing hours of Atari
After years of pumping coins into games in the arcade, the good folks at Atari answered video gamers’ early 80’s prayers with a console that plugged right into the family TV. To this day, many still attribute their fine motor skills to hundreds of hours logged with Ms. Pacman and Space Invaders.

Photo: Bill Bradford via Flickr Creative Commons

The Walkman
With the headphones on, mom and dad couldn’t hear just how loud Debbie Gibson was belting Only In My Dreams, so everyone was happy. Sure, the Walkman was a little too heavy to be clipped to the waistband of Umbro shorts, but losing our pants seemed like a small price to pay for loud music no one else could hear.

Photo credit: free photos & art via Flickr Creative Commons

Make mix tapes for everyone you know
Need to apologize to a friend? Make a mix tape. Not sure what to get your sister for her birthday? Make a mix tape. Hours were spent by the radio, holding the tape recorder up to the speaker so you could hit record the second the DJ finished his intro so you didn’t get his voice on your tape.

Photo credit: wetwebwork via Flickr Creative Commons

Using a phone book
We let our fingers do the walking thousands of times way back when, but phone books were so heavy, even we can admit we prefer Google to ever having to haul those things out again. However, despite their weight, we still spent time looking up our names each year the new White Pages came out because it made us feel famous.

Photo credit: Selmer van Alten via Flickr Creative Commons

Renting VHS movies at video stores
Long before Netflix, video rental stores ruled weekend plans. Back then you had to wait forever for movies to come out on VHS tape. Everyone got killed with rewinding or over-due fees but it was worth it. After all, who in their right mind would give back Back to the Future after only 2 nights?

Photo credit: Mariela M. via Flickr Creative Commons

Watching TV without remotes
Try telling your kids that we didn’t grow up with hundreds of TV channels, that there were no kid-specific TV channels, and that there definitely were not kid-specific TV channels that aired 24-hours in case you were sick in the middle of the night. Then explain how we didn’t have remotes to fast forward through commercials or record episodes because for a long time we didn’t even have remotes. Be prepared to watch their little minds be blown!

Photo credit: John Thornton / foistclub via Flickr Creative Commons

The family video camera
Can you imagine bringing one of those vintage video cameras with you on your next family trip? Your kids: Seriously dad. What is that? It’s almost the same size as me! And why the heck are you carrying it on your shoulder? Doesn’t that hurt? You look like a network TV cameraman. Can you even upload it to Facebook? Can’t you just use your iPhone to record video like everyone else? Jeez.

Photo credit: Melissa Doroquez via Flickr Creative Commons

Dialing a rotary phone
How anyone used these things before the invention of the no-chip manicure is beyond us. It would take at least 5-minutes to dial 9-1-1 and making an international call had to be a total nightmare. Tell your kids this is a phone and we’re pretty sure you’re going to get an eye-roll and a giggle that says, “Come on mom, do you think I’m dumb? You can’t even text on that!”

Photo credit: Nick Doty via Flickr Creative Commons

Saving everything to a floppy disk
Floppy disks were once such a hot commodity, Farmer Ted was willing to bet scoring on them. Um, Sixteen Candles anyone?! Despite the wussy name, they did rule the digital age, however these days, floppys are about as useful to technology as kids are to cleaning up the house.

Photo credit: Gunnar Grimnes via Flickr Creative Commons

Looking up homework in encyclopedias
No, kids, we said encyclopedia. It’s where Wikipedia got the name, however the idea is the same. Right, the same except that we had to haul 100 pounds of encyclopedia books home in our backpacks from the library to write one report because each book was a different letter of the alphabet. Forget old age. Could the encyclopedia be the reason for our aching back?

 Photo credit: Stewart Butterfield via Flickr Creative Commons

Balancing a checkbook…
Few things could stress us out like balancing a checkbook. It was the hardest math we ever had to do. No matter how often we tracked our spending, we always forgot a charge or missed a few dollars. Whatever the reason, it was never balanced and totally traumatizing, so these days we consider online banking one a basic necessity, like oxygen or water.

Photo credit: RikkisRefuge Other via Flickr Creative Commons

Developing film
Raise your hand if you ever accidentally printed the wrong roll of film because you couldn’t remember which photos were on which roll? Who knew that someday we’d actually be able to see photos before we paid to print them? Not to sound old, but kids today do know how good they have it…

Photo credit: Andrew Hitchcock via Flickr Creative Commons

Doggy daycare, pooch hotels, or anything of the pampering canine nature…
We loved our pets too, but the popularity of the pampering the pooch is definitely more of a 2000 and something than a 80’s or 90’s gig. Instead of putting them up at the Petnnisula or ritzy cage-free farms, we had kennels. Yep, we just called them kennels. And while our dogs never had a berry-fresh facial, they still came home tails wagging.

Photo by Christal Yuen

Coming up with a perfect outgoing answering machine message
Like a Facebook status, the answering machine message was basically one’s calling card. Personalizing a pop song to say we were out doing something much better than sitting home screening calls or pretending to answer the phone and then letting the caller know they had been pranked by the machine were two totally awesome burns!

Photo credit: Norbert Schnitzler

What else should we add to this list? 

— Jo Aaron

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Parks and Playgrounds that Rule in the Rain

by stephanie booth

True, most Stumptown parents boast an impressively high tolerance to precipitation, but on some dreary, drizzly winter days we all need a bit more motivation than usual to put on our boots and head outside. Here, some of our fave parks and playgrounds to visit with your offspring during the rainy season.

Grant Park, NE 33rd and Grant Place
You know Grant Park for its Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden, playground, off-leash dog park (or all of the above), but follow the path behind Beverly Cleary’s Hollyrood campus and you’ll find a group of towering pine trees that serve as a near-perfect shelter during any downpour. Smaller kids can bring buckets and shovels and dig in the dirt. And it’ll stoke the imagination of older kids who can pretend they’re setting up house/on the run/hiding from parents, etc.

photo credit: John G. via Yelp

Gabriel Park, SW 45th and Vermont St.
What we love about this lush 90-acre park? No matter the weather, you won’t be the only family here. Maybe it’s the draw of the 10,000 sq-foot skatepark. Or the easy trails that wind through a sweet patch of woods. Personally, we think it’s the crazy cool hills that kids love to run up and down, over and over (and over) again.

photo credit: Rafael G via Yelp

Irvington Elementary School Playground, 1320 NE Brazee
Rain or shine, the playground behind this public school is the place to play on weekends. Bike, scoot, and run under the covered area or venture out onto the blacktop where a brightly painted map allows kiddos to jump from one country to another.

Macleay Park, NW 29th Ave. and Upshur St.
This gorgeous, 140-acre park is so dense with Doug firs and western red Cedars that even on the rainiest day, you won’t get drenched, and kids will love hiking into the deep ravines. Park in the Upper Macleay parking lot and it’s only a half-mile trek to the abandoned Stone House, the  oddly enchanting remains of a former public restroom. (We know. That sounds weird, but check it out and you’ll see what we mean.)

photo credit: Sean G. via Yelp

Chimney Park, 9360 N. Columbia Blvd.
Okay, so there aren’t a tremendous amount of trees here. (Translation: you might get soaked.) What Chimney Park does have: Dogs, and lots of ‘em. This 18-acre area is an off-leash, completely fenced-in dog park. You and your little ones can hit the small trail loop while cockers and Labs happily chase and fetch balls beside you. If you’ve got a little pet lover, we guarantee they’ll be too distracted by the canine company to complain about the rain.

photo credit: Josh H via Yelp

Laurelhurst Park, SE Cesar E. Chavez and Stark St.
Paths to run on. Hills to run down. Steps to race up. But perhaps the most important thing you need to know about this lovely tree-filled park is that they have ducks. You can’t feed them, but you can watch them bobbing through the water and quacking importantly, completely nonplussed by the rain. Once you’ve had enough, head over to one of the cafes on nearby Belmont and warm up with some hot chocolate.

photo credit: Crystal D. via Yelp

What’s your favorite rainy day playground? Tell us in the comment section below!

–Stephanie Booth

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