Lowcountry dog park tour: Bark Park at Riverfront Park

To be honest, I was a little bit disappointed with the dog park at Riverfront Park in North Charleston, especially considering how nice and spacious the rest of the park is. The Bark Park almost seemed like an afterthought in comparison. It’s like someone took an area of the park that wasn’t much good for anything else and said “Let’s make a dog park out of it”. However, I suppose it’s better than nothing.

The Bark Park is quite a small fenced in area. There’s a dog-lock style gate, but whoever put together the gates and latches didn’t do it very well and I don’t think they measured things out all that accurately either for the outer gate. As a result it would be pretty easy for dogs to push their way past both gates and get loose if the inner gate isn’t closed properly.

Unlike all the other dog parks we’ve visited so far, there is no water fountain installed in the park. Instead, there are a couple of watering stations provided that are starting to look a little green with algae growth. They also collect whatever happens to fall from the trees. IMO the lack of water fountain is quite a significant oversight. Hopefully they’re just temporary and a permanent water fountain is in the works. In the meantime, I’d recommend bringing your own water and bowl for your dogs.

There are benches along the side for people to sit on, and trees provide plenty of shade. They also drop lots of pecans for dogs to crunch on (probably not a good thing for dogs to do).

One very nice feature the dog park has are the agility type jumps and tunnel. Since there’s not a whole lot of room for dogs to run, these provide a fun way for dog owners to engage and interact with their dogs.