VANCOUVER — Not every dog owner would consider Vancouver a dog-friendly town. Near-wars have broken out between owners and non-owners in city parks. Fines of $2,000 are threatened should a pooch trespass on a no-dogs beach.
With the downtown condo boom, the dog issue has again raised its furry head. Dog owners are a major sector of the market, and they have their demands.
Developer Amacon has responded with what it says is Canada's first condo dog run in its coming downtown development, the Beasley Residences at Homer and Smithe streets. The Beasley is a $150-million, 33-storey development that will include a 2,000-square-foot dog run, made mostly of bark mulch, on the building's eighth floor.
The landscaped run will include benches for owners, a waste receptacle, dog wash and grooming station. The sales team for Amacon has found that the social aspect of the dog run is already appealing to those who have signed up for information online.
Matt Carruthers, with pals Dixie (right) and Buddy, sparked the idea for developer Amacon’s dog-friendly condo, the Beasley. (JEFF VINNICK FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
The idea came from elementary school principal Matt Carruthers, 38, who passed it along to his friend Nic Jensen, sales and marketing manager for Amacon.
Mr. Carruthers (who does not plan to move into the Beasley) says it took him a year to find a downtown condo that would meet his needs as well as those of Buddy and Dixie, his Boston terriers.
"There were some other factors too, but the dog thing really complicated a lot of the deals," says Mr. Carruthers, who was moving from the suburbs. "A lot of buildings didn't have any room for dogs. Some had a grandfathered clause. Some were limited to one dog. Some were one dog, one cat … it seemed to be a very real issue with a lot of stratas.
"It was kind of frustrating because you could find the right location and all the amenities and then realize they didn't accept pets. So that was it, done deal kind of thing. We were going to dress one of the dogs up as a cat."
Mr. Carruthers eventually found a suitable condo, but after seeing so few parks downtown that allowed dogs, he suggested the idea of a condo dog run to Mr. Jensen, who proposed the idea to his colleagues working on the Beasley. Before they knew it, the puns were flying and the "wooftop deck," "canine corral" or "dog deck" was born.
"Over the past few years condo living has become more socially acceptable," says Mr. Jensen. "We cater to the needs of the purchasers and we've ... put home theatres in the buildings, and gyms and pools and outdoor volleyball courts. More and more, people seem to have dogs — yet developers are never really catering to the dogs that mean so much to so many people."
Dog owner Jennifer Ross says dogs shouldn't be merely tolerated but rather appreciated for playing a valuable social role in the downtown core. She created dog directories Raincitydogs.com and TorontoDogs.com a decade ago, after getting her own dog from the humane society and finding little in the way of dog service information.
She has since come to the conclusion that it takes a dog to raise a village.
"These dense populations can actually be quite isolating, often alienating places to live, where people living metres away from each other may never see each other, may not know each other's names, and certainly aren't looking out for each other like people living in more traditional neighbourhoods," Ms. Ross says.
"Dogs can encourage social interaction. People meet at parks, exercise together, chat on walks in the neighbourhood, in elevators," she says. "Dogs can provide the missing community."
Special to The Globe and Mail
