Dog-Gone Good Time Officially Opens in Egg Harbor

Egg Harbor resident Susan Grady’s dogs, three-year-old Jody and 8-year-old Zorro, enjoy a hot day off their leashes at the brand new Egg Harbor Harbor Hounds Dog Park. Photo by Len Villano.

With the new Harbor Hounds Dog Park, Man’s Best Friends now have a reason to enjoy Egg Harbor as much as their owners. And it’s a dog-gone good time.

“We invite anyone, visitor or resident, to come down and bring their dogs,” said Nancy Fisher, Egg Harbor village president and Door County Humane Society program coordinator.

Fisher and Kathy Navis, owner of Greens n’ Grains in Egg Harbor and Junction Yoga Center in Jacksonport, first came up with the idea to build a dog park in 2010. Both are dog lovers and wanted a closer park for their pooches so that they didn’t have to drive to the dog parks in Sturgeon Bay or Sister Bay.

They decided an overgrown, unloved acre of Village View Park in Egg Harbor would be perfect.

After coming up with a budget, they brought the idea for the park to the village plan commission in February 2011 and were given a conditional use permit for the space. They then set out to fundraise and raised approximately $6,000 of private donations. The rest of the funds – about $9,500 – to create the park came from room tax revenue.

“We were glad to be able to make use of this area that really had no purpose until 18 months ago,” Fisher said.

Navis said that the dog park will bring more to Egg Harbor residents than a space to let their pups run free.

“I thought it would be a wonderful addition to the village of Egg Harbor,” Navis said. “We have lots of people here that travel with their pets. Being a pet owner, when I travel somewhere I check and see where the dog park is, and that’s where I go.”

By being known as a pet-friendly area, Navis and Fisher hope pet owners, both local and vacationing, will spend more time there.

The Harbor Hounds Dog Park will have its Grand Opening on Saturday June 23 with treats for creatures of both the dog and human variety. The Door County Humane Society will be offering micro-chipping, or inserting a device the size of a grain of rice between a pet’s shoulder blades, for $25.

The micro-chip device holds identification information for the pet and can be read by most veterinary clinics.

“Tags can come off, collars can come off,” Fisher said. “This is the one way identification is permanent.”