Dog park gets aesthetic upgrade
By Amy Schneider

When the Georgia heat and annual drought began to have their expected effects on Hartsfield-Jackson’s dog park, Chris Madura, Aviation rental car center contract administrator, knew something had to be done.

“I wanted the passengers who travel with their dogs to have a nice place to ‘visit,’ and I wanted to improve the curb appeal, make it look better, for those folks without pets,” Madura said.
 
Several companies were consulted, and Turf Georgia was enlisted to transform the dog park — literally overnight. The company began the work on June 28 in the evening, when there is less foot and vehicle traffic in the area, and was told the project needed to be wrapped up by 7 a.m. the following day. It was.

“The feedback from customers has been very positive,” Madura said. “One woman, who travels frequently through Hartsfield-Jackson with her dog, said the improvements are outstanding. It looks so clean and nice.”

In place of the natural grass, which was difficult to maintain (as most homeowners can attest), is bright, perpetually green, never-needs-mowing artificial turf.

Owners are asked to use the Mutt Mitts provided in the park to clean up their dogs’ solid waste, but liquid waste will pass through the turf to a sand layer beneath and wash away into a drainage system.

Turf Georgia, which had previous experience installing a dog park in Alpharetta, used Google Earth and on-site measurements to get the dimensions of the dog park before the date of installation. The pieces were cut to the exact specifications, which not only made the installation faster but also prevented seams in the individual sections of turf.

The dog park opened in November 2009, and pathways were added in 2011 to minimize human visitors’ need to be on the grass areas. The renovated dog park retains the pathways, benches and sculptures.