Report to rank possible Exeter dog park sites

By John Miner

The dog park issue continues to dog South Huron council.

At its latest meeting, council received a report from staff on what people thought about locating a dog park in Exeter.

A total of 476 responses were received in an online survey run by the municipality from April 23 to May 21.

Out of that number, 300 said they were in favour of the municipality establishing a public dog park in Exeter, 143 were opposed, 23 were somewhat in favour, and 10 were unsure.

Council has been dealing with the Exeter dog park issue since the idea was first raised by residents in November 2024. The municipality currently operates dog parks in Crediton and Centralia.

The Exeter park made it into the draft South Huron budget last fall with the cost estimated at $30,000.

But in December, council voted to remove that budget item.

Mayor George Finch then used his strong mayor powers to veto council’s decision and put the dog park back in the budget.

The reinstatement was short-lived.

At its first meeting in January, South Huron councillors overrode Finch’s veto in a 5-2 vote.

That didn’t go down well with some Exeter residents, who wrote to council offering to put up money for the park. One couple offered $5,000.

Pet Valu and Canadian Tire have also offered to pitch in.

Council has now asked for a review of possible Exeter dog park locations with a ranking of sites in terms of accessibility and costs.

In a recorded vote, Mayor George Finch and councillors Aaron Neeb, Ted Oke, and Marissa Vaughan supported proceeding with the report. Opposed were Deputy Mayor Jim Dietrich and councillors Milt Dietrich and Wendy McLeod-Haggitt.

Before the vote, McLeod-Haggitt warned council to expect other parts of South Huron will push for their own dog park if the Exeter one goes ahead, including Dashwood and Grand Bend.

“Keep a mental note of that because it is going to come back,” she said.

Coun. Ted Oke asked about the reliability of the online survey that indicated 63 per cent of respondents favoured an Exeter park.

Report author Scott Currie, South Huron’s communications and strategic initiatives manager, said it was possible that people submitted more than one response in an effort to skew the results.

Currie said he looked for responses with repeated patterns to see if that was happening. His guess is that about eight per cent of responses were duplicate submissions, but it happened on both the yes and no side of things.

“The end result doesn’t really move the needle,” he said.

The online survey also asked people favouring a dog park how often they would use it. 115 said they would use it daily and 133 would use it weekly.

As for locations, respondents to the survey did not converge on a single location, the report noted.

There were repeated concerns in the responses about avoiding active sports fields, residential areas, and children’s play areas.