Regrade Park, located in the trendy Belltown district of downtown Seattle, is as small as the mini-mart next door. It is surrounded by cold black fences, has woodchips instead of grass and is without a playground or basketball hoop. Despite its size and lack of amenities, however, it is full. Full of dogs.

Brendan McGill with his boxer, Busso, at Regrade Park.

Photo: Helen Freund

On a chilling and dark weekday night, Beauregard, my fawn pug, walks into the park for his first time. And he is scared. As soon as he gains freedom from his leash, he sprints away from curious dogs and heads for shelter under Dorothea Duran as Duran talks with a park-goer and his Chihuahua. The Chihuahua sports a vest and tan cowboy hat.

“They’re all coming to get acquainted with you,” she says to Beau, whose wrinkled face shows nothing but fear. She hides Beau under her legs and against a cement bench. “They want to know who you are.”

The Chihuahua leaves with his master and Duran says goodbye to her friend. “I see the same people here every day,” she says while looking around, smiling. “Sometimes I see them in the rain, too.” Duran says she knows all of the regular park-goers by name, and comes to the park every day to play with their dogs. She lives in an apartment building that doesn’t allow her to own a dog.

A Siberian husky named Dawson runs up. It is after Beau. Dawson’s owner chases after her dog. “I come here usually five days during the week,” says the husky’s owner. She says that she never used to visit the park before it was turned into an off-leash area – it was known throughout Belltown as a drug spot.

Off-leash parks in Seattle have given birth to a community of park goers who are characterized by devotion. They are devoted to parks, dogs and each other. “I don’t think that I could live in a big city that didn’t have off-leash areas,” says Ali Rutzel, the head of Citizens for Off-Leash Areas (COLA). “I’ve (run) into a bunch of people who have said the exact same thing.”

Parks like Regrade see the same crowd every day. The people that walk their dogs in off-leash areas are among the people who pressured the city’s government into starting dog parks a decade ago.

Two dogs frolic at off-leash Regrade Park.

Photo: Helen Freund

COLA is one of the groups that were responsible for the first off-leash areas in Seattle. The organization is made up of volunteer dog lovers who act as stewards for off-leash areas and as liaisons between users and the Seattle City Council.

“The whole thing started because there were no off-leash areas,” said Rutzel. “The animal control officers were coming down hard on those people who were letting their dogs run free in the parks.

“So the dog owners said, ‘If you are going to fine us for this, then we need areas to exercise our dogs at.’ So a group of community members got together, formed COLA and started putting pressure on the parks department and city council to establish off-leash areas.”

Seattle’s newest off-leash area is inside the city’s newest park, the I-5 Colonnade. The park feels as if it is located indoors – it is completely enveloped by Seattle’s main freeway. A constant hum of traffic from above is barely noticeable. It is drowned out by barking dogs brought to celebrate the opening of the park.

Walking towards the off-leash area, Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols looks around and smiles. He likes what he sees. Parks need more than open spaces, he says. They need “a number of activities: active sports, enjoyment of art and also people and their pets. Parks have a real role in the socialization of a city. Off-leash areas really expand upon that.”

The transformation of Regrade into a downtown canine hot spot is the most recent success story for Seattle’s off-leash areas, Nichols says. He points to the dog lovers as a way of pushing crime away and bringing in community members.

Regrade, Nichols says, “was a real problem park and we couldn’t police it enough. We put an off-leash area in it and crime is gone. Singles, now, go down there with their dogs and romance is coming out of it.”

Regrade Park goer Renee Alexius: “My dog and I come here almost daily.”

Photo: Helen Freund

Before off-leash areas won the support of the city’s highest officials, they were the dream of a few dog lovers. Sharon LeVine has been an influential citizen behind dog parks since 1994. “I used to have to hide out from Animal Control,” she says as she remembers the days before off-leash areas like the one in the I-5 Colonnade were around.

“People had preconceived notions (about the effects of dog parks),” LeVine says. “But now there’s a different attitude – everyone likes these things. It’s really gratifying.”

The organizing of dog-loving communities is becoming a national pattern. Off-leash parks are opening throughout the United States, according to Web site “The Bark” (http//www.thebark.com). But these individual parks have yet to become organized on a national level. Instead, each park carries a story similar to Seattle’s: most off-leash areas are started by a few dog-loving locals who band together.

According to “The Bark,” the most effective way to establish dog parks is to create an “umbrella group.” The shining example is COLA. As more parks are established in the United States, their history is almost always traced back to the support of one of these groups. These are always comprised of a close-knit community of dog lovers.

“Umbrella groups,” serve as spokespeople for the dog community, which is exactly what COLA did 10 years ago. “They got the attention and support of a city council member, Jan Drago,” says Seattle Parks and Recreation Communication Manager Dewey Potter. “There were very, very few cities at the time that had off-leash areas, so we were kind of flying blind in the terms of policy.”

COLA and the Parks and Recreation Department agreed on seven pilot sites to act as experiments. “We had to conduct the whole pilot program with no funding. It was pretty bare bones – it was fencing and that was about it,” Potter says.

The friendly communities at dog parks are what eventually led to off-leash parks success, Rutzel says. There are now 10 parks throughout Seattle. “People say, ‘I never knew my neighbors until I went to the dog park.’ You meet all these wonderful people (and the only thing) that you have in common is that you have a dog and that you love dogs— you wouldn’t meet these people anywhere else.”

The entrance to Magnuson’s off-leash area is muddy. Yesterday, perhaps, it was filled with dirt but today’s stagnant mist has liquefied the massive field.

Because the nine-acre park is the largest in Seattle, it sees a huge variety of dogs. In a back corner of the park lies a section with a makeshift sign that reads “Small and shy dogs.” On a dark weeknight the fenced off area is for anything but shy dogs.

From a distance, it looks as if the small dog area is lit by orange neon fireflies, fluttering around in a shuffle dance. Randomly, the fireflies move around in every direction, sometimes running straight into each other. It is dark in Magnuson Park; the only life left on this early evening is the pumpkin-colored pixie-like creatures.

They are dogs, not flies or fairies. And they are wearing glow-in-the-dark collars.

“We are the glow light group,” says Judy Akalaitis. She grabs her dog’s blinking collar and shows it off. “When one (dog) gets one, they all have to have it.” Akalaitis is with two friends, Ted Jones and Nancy Short, who are daily visitors.

“One dog walked past and we saw it and had to have it,” says Jones. “We got them the next day.”

The park’s lack of lighting is forcing most of the dog owners to leave. But these three are sticking it out, for their dogs’ sake. “It was a lot more fun when it was light out,” Akalaitis says. They come to Magnuson daily, they say, because it has the biggest and best off-leash area.

“I went to this park first and when I went to the other ones I was like, ‘oh, they’re not as big.’ This one is huge,” says Short.

Lizzy, a black pug, is scouring the mud alongside Isabelle, Jones’ beagle. Two Ciara terriers are also jumping on each other in the middle of the triangle that the three dog owners form.

Two of the dogs begin to pounce on each other, which shoots mud all around. It is almost too dark to see which dog is more dominant. “Despite all the growling, they are having fun,” Jones says.

“They get so much more of their energy out this way than walking,” adds Akalaitis.

With a laugh, the three retell a memorable event involving Betty, a pug and poodle mix: When Betty’s owners went out of town, a friend took the dog to Magnuson Park, as was Betty’s routine. Jones says everyone in the park, instantly recognizing Betty, thought that she had been stolen. “It was a different owner – everyone was confused,” he laughs.

The community of regulars at Magnuson, Jones says, produces a family-like familiarity. He says that every human is defined by his or her dog. “I know 40 dogs here,” he says with a chuckle. “But I don’t know any of their owners’ names.”