About Us
Four people. Four dogs. Twenty years of parking in the shade and checking the water fountain first.
Welcome to the pack. We are four people who have spent years on trails, in parks, and on the road with our dogs — and we've made every mistake so you don't have to.
Jake walks the parks so you know where to go. Elena breaks the gear so you know what to buy. Maya reads the dogs so you know if your dog will actually enjoy it. And Sam maps the trips so you know how to get there.
Together, we're building the most honest, ground-tested dog park guide in America. No sponsored hype. No stock photos. Just real places, real tests, and real dogs.
Our Editor's Note
This site began in 2006 as a simple directory — a list of dog parks by state, because there wasn't one. For fifteen years, it stayed roughly the same: a public service, quietly maintained, free to use.
Then a few things happened at once. Dog ownership went up. Off-leash spaces got harder to find. And the quality of "dog park reviews" online collapsed — most of them started reading like affiliate pages, with the same five national chains and the same "top 10" lists that clearly hadn't been visited.
So we rebuilt. Not as a directory. As a testing lab. Every park on this site now has to survive the same standard: at least two visits, at different times, with a real dog, scored against ten dimensions and a Social Pressure Index. Every piece of gear has to survive Elena's tests — inversion, shake, pull to failure, crash simulation. When something fails, we say so publicly, in a public failure log.
We still make money through affiliate links. That's how a site like this stays free. But we've turned down thousands in commissions by telling readers not to buy things. We'll keep doing that. Because the only thing that actually compounds in this business is trust, and you can't fake your way to it.
— The USA Dog Parks team
Meet the Team
Four people, four disciplines, one shared rule: we don't recommend anything we wouldn't put our own dogs through.
Jake Morrison
Field Reviewer
Former state park ranger. I walk the parks so you don't have to. 200+ dog parks visited, 7 years with Scout by my side.
Specialty: Ground surface, fence integrity, shade coverage, crowd pressure, and whether the water fountain actually works.
With USA Dog Parks since 2018.
Elena Rodriguez
Gear Testing Lead
Pet product tester. I break things so your dog doesn't get hurt. Austin, Texas. Two dachshunds, zero patience for junk.
Specialty: Car harnesses (crash simulation), travel water bottles (leak protocol), cooling vests (heat chamber), and paw protection (pavement testing).
With USA Dog Parks since 2020.
Maya Patel
Behavior Consultant
Certified dog trainer (CPDT-KA). I read the dogs so you don't have to guess. Chicago, Illinois. Miso's human.
Specialty: Reading body language at the park, evaluating Social Pressure Index, advising on parks for reactive or anxious dogs, and teaching the difference between "playing" and "overwhelmed."
With USA Dog Parks since 2021.
Sam Whitfield
Travel Route Editor
Travel writer and photographer. I map the trips so you and your dog can just go. Boulder, Colorado. Hank's road trip partner.
Specialty: Dog-friendly hotels (verified by phone), road trip routes, national park rules, and which rest stops actually work for dogs.
With USA Dog Parks since 2021.
How We Work Together
We don't always agree. Jake thinks Maya over-thinks things — she thinks he under-thinks them. Elena has publicly retracted her own recommendations more than once, and Sam keeps a private spreadsheet of phone-call answers versus actual hotel invoices. That tension is the point. If four people who spend every day around dogs agree on everything, they're not paying attention.
What we do share is a rule: we don't say something works if we haven't seen it work. We don't call a park "great" without having visited it twice. We don't recommend a product without knowing its failure mode. And when we're wrong — and we have been — we say so, in the article, and in our manifesto.
How to Reach Us
We read every email, though we can't respond to all of them. If you're writing to suggest a park for review, please include: the park name, city, state, and one line about what's distinctive about it. If you're writing to report an error, please include the URL. If you're writing to correct something we got wrong, thank you — that's the most useful email we get.
hello@usadogparks.com
The Business Side
We disclose everything. Our affiliate relationships, our editorial independence policy, and how we make money are all in our manifesto. If you want to know how we score parks and gear, that's in How We Score.