All 13 of L.A.’s Official Dog Parks, Ranked. Only One Is Open After Dark.

The order runs on the city’s own records: posted hours, posted acreage, and the weekly maintenance lockout nobody advertises.

Silver Lake wins, it isn’t close, and it wins on one line of city text the other twelve don’t have: 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Every other off-leash dog park the City of Los Angeles lists either runs sunrise to sunset or posts no hours at all. The Naval Observatory puts today’s Los Angeles sunrise at 6:48 a.m. and sunset at 6:36 p.m., so the clock at 1863 Silver Lake Blvd. hands you four hours and twelve minutes a day that the rest of the list legally doesn’t. This is the week to care about that, because the National Weather Service has the valleys at 105.

That’s the test. We read all thirteen facility pages on the Department of Recreation and Parks’ own dog-park index today, pulled the acreage out of the department’s sponsorship prospectus, and matched both against the Naval Observatory’s sun times and the Weather Service’s live warning. Ten of the thirteen post hours. Eight have a published size. One has a clock.

The warning is why the clock decides this. NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard issued an Extreme Heat Warning at 10:38 a.m. today, running until 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, for “dangerously hot conditions with temperatures up to 90 at the coast and 105 in the valleys.” The zones it names include the Western and Eastern San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, Santa Clarita, both halves of the Santa Monica Mountains Recreational Area, the inland coast including downtown, and the county’s beaches. The three biggest of the eight parks the city has measured — Sepulveda Basin in Encino, Whitnall in North Hollywood, Laurel Canyon off Mulholland Drive — all sit inside them.

Then there’s the lockout, which is the part the city doesn’t put on a sign at the gate. Seven of the thirteen close one morning a week for maintenance, and the hours they take are the only cool ones a dog gets. Griffith Park, Westminster in Venice, Whitnall and Veterans’ Barrington all shut Tuesdays from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Laurel Canyon and Sepulveda Basin shut Fridays from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Sunrise is 6:48. On its closed morning, each of those parks is locked from before it could have opened until hours after the cool is gone. Inside this warning that falls on Tuesday the 6th; the next Friday lockout, Oct. 9, lands the day after the warning is set to lift, which the Weather Service says it may extend.

1. Silverlake Dog Park, Silver Lake — 1.25 acres, and the only clock in the city

First because the city wrote down a time. The page for Silver Lake posts 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., which today means 48 minutes before the sun comes up and three hours and 24 minutes after it goes down. At 1.25 acres it’s the second-smallest the city has measured, with a separate area for small or timid dogs and the reservoir behind it. The catch is Wednesday: the page says it closes at 6:00 a.m. “until maintenance is completed,” the only closure on this list with no stated end, so Oct. 7 is a question mark rather than a window.

This is the placement worth arguing about, and we’ll take the argument. Sepulveda Basin has five and a quarter more acres, and nobody disputes it. But ground you can only stand on between 6:48 a.m. and 6:36 p.m., in a week the Weather Service has pegged at 105 in the valleys, isn’t ground — it’s a field with a curfew. Four extra hours a day, most of them after the ground has stopped radiating, beats five extra acres at noon. Come back in February and the order flips; that’s what makes it an argument and not a measurement.

2. Sepulveda Basin Off-Leash Dog Park, Encino — 6.5 acres, five hours gone on Fridays

The biggest off-leash park the city runs, by more than double. The department’s sponsorship prospectus describes 6.5 acres at White Oak and Victory with “lots of space to run, jump, and catch Frisbees,” a large separate area for small or timid dogs, and an on-leash picnic area — the only picnic area in any of the department’s write-ups. It finishes second on two lines of fine print: sunrise to sunset, and a Friday closure from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., the longest weekly lockout on the list. On a Friday in this heat warning, Encino’s dog park opens for the first time at 11 a.m., which is the hour you’d otherwise be leaving.

3. Laurel Canyon Dog Park, off Mulholland Drive — 3 acres, and shade in writing

The city calls this one “the City’s original dog park,” and it is one of only two on the list whose official description names a shade structure: “benches, chairs and a large shade structure.” Three acres at 8260 Mulholland Dr., with a separate area for small or timid dogs, sunrise to sunset, and the same Friday 6-to-11 lockout as Sepulveda Basin. Third rather than fourth entirely because of that structure — the Weather Service’s instruction for this week is to stay out of the sun, and this is one of two addresses where the city has committed in print to somewhere you can do that.

4. Whitnall Off-Leash Dog Park, North Hollywood — 3 acres, and a notice the city left up for five years

Three acres, tied with Laurel Canyon for second-largest, with “a large separate area for small or timid dogs.” The city is unusually plain about where it put them: “isolated but easily accessible,” “situated under the historic Whitnall Highway Utility Corridor,” making “good use of the wide center strip.” Fourth because the same document that names Laurel Canyon’s shade structure names none here, and North Hollywood sits in the Eastern San Fernando Valley zone where the warning tops out at 105. Closed Tuesdays, 6:00 to 10:00 a.m.

And one caution this ranking can’t resolve for you. Whitnall’s is the only one of the thirteen pages still carrying a construction notice, and the construction it announces was scheduled to end five years ago: “Whitnall Dog Park will be closing for renovations in two phases August through November 2021,” large dog area first, small dog area after it. It’s also the only page with a “Nearest Off-Leash Dog Parks” block steering readers to Griffith Park and Laurel Canyon instead — which is what a page announcing a closure does. Nothing on it says the work finished. Nothing says it didn’t. The notice stays fourth on ground rather than dropping, because a page the city forgot to take down is a documentation failure and not a closed gate, but call (818) 756-8190 before you drive to North Hollywood.

5. Veterans’ Barrington Park, Brentwood — 1.5 acres, the other shade structure, and a priority nobody mentions

The second structure: “benches, tables, and a large shade structure amongst the Eucalyptus trees.” It’s also the one park on this list the city doesn’t own. The land belongs to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and is “operated and funded through a partnership” with Recreation and Parks, and the city’s own page says the park “is dedicated for priority use and enjoyment by Veterans and their families,” with priority access going to veterans unless it collides with use the VA has already approved. Fifth on ground, and carrying one asterisk: of the eight parks the city has measured, it’s the only one whose official description doesn’t mention a separate area for small or timid dogs. Closed Tuesdays, 6:00 to 10:00 a.m.

6. Hermon Park in the Arroyo Seco Dog Park, Northeast L.A. — 1.3 acres and no weekly lockout

Only three of the ten dog parks with posted hours get through a week without a maintenance closure: this one, Ross Snyder and Runyon Canyon. It finishes highest of those three because the other two come with an asterisk — no published size at Ross Snyder, no stated off-leash boundary at Runyon. The city lists 1.3 acres on the east side of Hermon Park at 5566 Via Marisol, a separate area for small or timid dogs, and “hillside views amidst the trees of the Arroyo Seco region” — trees being the operative word on Tuesday the 6th, when Griffith Park, Whitnall, Westminster and Barrington are all locked until 10. Sunrise to sunset, seven days, nothing posted against it.

7. Griffith Park Dog Park, North Zoo Drive — 1.6 acres beside two freeways

Three-tenths of an acre bigger than Hermon Park, with a separate area for small or timid dogs and “benches, chairs and tables,” which is the city’s entire amenity list for it. The prospectus calls it “quaint, remote” and then, in the same sentence, places it “adjacent to the 134 and 5 freeways” — the department doing the joke itself. Seventh rather than sixth for the Tuesday lockout, and because it’s the hardest address on the list to actually find: the city’s listing carries no street number, only “the north end of the John Ferraro Soccer Field on North Zoo Drive.”

8. Westminster Dog Park, Venice — 0.8 acres, two blocks from the boardwalk

The smallest off-leash park the city has measured: 0.8 acres at 1234 Pacific Ave., with a separate area for small or timid dogs. The prospectus’s one weather claim belongs to it — “enjoy the ocean breeze” — and this week the claim is load-bearing, because the warning caps the coast at 90 while the valleys go to 105. Eighth because 0.8 acres is 0.8 acres, and because the Tuesday 6-to-10 closure takes the four hours this heat makes valuable.

9. Ross Snyder Dog Park, South L.A. — hours, and no size

South Los Angeles has exactly one entry on the city’s off-leash list: 1501 E. 41st St., Council District 9. Its page posts hours — sunrise to sunset, with no weekly closure — and a published email address, which is more than any of the other twelve manage. What it doesn’t have is a number. Ross Snyder is one of five parks the sponsorship prospectus skips entirely, so the city publishes no acreage for it at all, and that silence is the only reason it isn’t ranked higher than a 0.8-acre lot in Venice.

10, 11 and 12. Eagle Rock, Glen Alla and Westwood — the city posts no hours for any of them

Eagle Rock Dog Park, 1100 Eagle Vista Dr., is the only one of these three the department bothers to assign a council district. No hours, no acreage, no closure notice, no phone number.

Glen Alla Dog Park, 4601 Alla Rd. in Marina del Rey, gets a region and a neighborhood service area and then stops. No hours, no district, no size.

Westwood Dog Park, 1350 Sepulveda Blvd., is filed by Recreation and Parks under “Region: Valley,” which will come as news to anyone who has driven Sepulveda Boulevard south of Wilshire. No hours, no district, no size. All three are on the city’s own list of off-leash dog parks. They are also three places where the public record can’t tell you whether you’re allowed to be there at 8 p.m., which is the one thing this ranking is about.

13. Runyon Canyon Dog Park, Hollywood Hills — 160 acres, and the city won’t say how many are off-leash

Last, and the record puts it there. Runyon sits on the dog-park index next to twelve ordinary dog parks, but the city’s page for it describes “a 160-acre park … at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains,” and its park guidelines say only “Dogs off leash in designated areas only.” How much of the 160 acres those designated areas cover is not on the page. The city’s answer is a phone number for the park rangers, (323) 644-6661.

The same page says there are no restroom facilities anywhere in the park, carries a standing line telling visitors to carry water, and posts a notice that the West Trail “is closed until further notice due to recent fire,” with everything else open. A 160-acre hillside with no restrooms, no small-dog side, an off-leash boundary the city won’t state and standing advice to bring your own water is a hike you can take a dog on. It isn’t a dog park, and in a week the Weather Service calls dangerously hot it’s the last address on this list I’d take one to.

The 22 rules posted at every gate, and the two that end trips

All thirteen pages carry the same 22 numbered codes, and two of them are strict enough to end a trip at the gate. Rule 22: “All Dogs must be spayed or neutered (LAMC 53.15.2).” Rule 12: “Absolutely no food or treats are allowed inside the park,” on the stated grounds that “the presence of food my lead to aggression” — the typo is the city’s, and it is on all thirteen pages.

The rest run the same way. Rule 9 bars female dogs in any stage of heat. Rule 6 bars any dog under four months. Rule 11 bars, by name, “Wolf hybrid (LAMC 53.39), cats, pot bellied pigs, rabbits, ferrets, rats, birds and reptiles.” Rule 17 bars bicycles, skateboards and rollerblades. Rule 15 bars grooming. And rule 10 is the one that catches people between the car and the fence: dogs must be leashed at all times in the parking area.

One last number, which explains the other twelve

The eight parks the department has measured add up to 18.95 acres. The same prospectus credits Recreation and Parks with “450 + city parks, encompassing 16,000 + acres of parkland” in a city of 470 square miles — so there is roughly one acre of posted off-leash ground for every 845 acres of park the city runs. The brochure is blunter than the index is: it offers sponsors “our eight Off-Leash Dog Parks,” five short of the thirteen the city’s own directory lists.

If you’re going out before the warning lifts at 8 p.m. Thursday: Silver Lake, after 6:36 p.m., and not on a Wednesday.