FRANKFORT, Ind. – The residents of Frankfort will soon have a dog park located at Dorner Park thanks to donations from the George Dorner Family Fund. The community and their dogs are invited to a special celebration on Saturday, September 10th at 11 am at the dog park when local FFA students will install dog agility equipment inside the fenced park.
The Frankfort Parks Department announced Tuesday, August 23, the dog park has an official name – The Mary Jane McMahon Dog Park; named after the first female mayor elected in Frankfort who served two-terms from January 1976 until December 1983. She passed away in July 2014.
Frankfort Parks Superintendent Bart Kraning described the dog space as huge during a recent presentation he gave to the Board of Works and spoke of great ideas that came from a meeting with Nancy Elsie.
“I met with Nancy Elsie, she had some really good ideas that we have to implement,” said Kraning. “One of them being a key fob system to access the park. And once I did research a lot of parks are doing that.”
“My suggestion would be they come to the park purchase like a $5 deposit or something… then they get that key fob, they register their animal with the city and then they can key fob into the park facility.”
“Another thing that she had was, uh, once you enter the dog park, there should be a, a second doorway so then you have two doors. That eliminates pets from escaping; it cuts down on them escaping drastically… Cause the dog park is 300 feet long. So I mean, it’s huge.”
In addition to agility equipment in the park, the plan calls for park and the area surrounding to have benches installed, shade trees planted, signage and mulch spread.
Completion of the park is scheduled for Spring of 2023.
