![\"Andrea](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/c03a0f95ecba431019db2dacbc4a34e9.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nDog parents welcomed the opening of a new off-leash park with a dedicated small dog area in Waverley West on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
Bridgwater Trails Dog Park officially opened in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Park, with a ribbon cutting with Coun. Janice Lukes and Mayor Scott Gillingham held in front of barking dogs who were already enjoying the fenced area.<\/p>\n
“This park is more than a space for dogs to run free. It’s a place for neighbours to meet, friendships to grow and our community to become even stronger,” said Andrea Chow, a member of Lukes’ staff and resident of the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
The $275,000 project was built with funding from the Waverley West communities fund topped up by $50,000 from the mayor’s civic initiatives fund.<\/p>\n
The one-hectare dog park was an underused baseball diamond where people were already gathering to let their dogs run, Chow said.<\/p>\n
It features one of two dedicated officially designated small dog off-leash areas in the city. The other is in Transcona, in the eastern part of Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Andrea Chow says the dog park is a place that builds community. (Travis Golby\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Jon Waldman, who helps run the Wienie and Friends dog group, said he and others have been advocating for the much-needed space.<\/p>\n
“We’ve seen so many cases, unfortunately, of smaller dogs being attacked by larger dogs,” said Waldman, who was at the park with his dachshund Oreo.<\/p>\n
“Some just want to play. Some are a little bit more aggressive,” he said, but now small dogs like Oreo can “roam and play as they want.”<\/p>\n
Eriko Tsuchi said Mochi, her border collie-Jack Russell mix, would happily spend all day at the park, and she echoed Chow’s words about community.<\/p>\n
“It’s a good way to, like, meet people,” she said. “It just kind of brings the community together.”<\/p>\n
Gillingham also used the event to praise Lukes, who’s not running for re-election in October, saying her decision not to run is “a huge loss for this community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dog parents welcomed the opening of a new off-leash park with a dedicated small dog area in Waverley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[40037,40038,38935,4648,38937,84],"class_list":["post-117261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-andrea-chow","tag-dog-park","tag-janice-lukes","tag-scott-gillingham","tag-waverley-west","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}