Park Your Pet app gets plaudits

The City of Greater Geelong’s Health and Local Laws team has been highly commended at the National Awards for Local Government for developing the Park Your Pet smart-phone application.

The Park Your Pet app benefits both dog owners and councils, and was entered in the Innovation to Create More Liveable and Collaborative Communities category.

As a community-based platform, the Park Your Pet app offers information about dog and pet regulations, as well as informative articles for dog owners and upcoming local events for people and their four-legged friends.

The dog walking app was jointly created by the City of Greater Geelong and Red Herring Digital to enable people to clearly identify on-leash and off-leash areas to walk their dogs.

With more than 1,250 square kilometres of coastal, rural and urban areas, Geelong’s vast range of open spaces require strict dog control orders to ensure that people, other animals and the natural environment are protected.

Whether it’s on-leash or off-leash, Park Your Pet has council parks listed with additional information such as water availability, doggy bags and bins specific to the local laws of the particular council.

The city has plans to further develop the functionality of the app, so it continues to benefit dog owners across the municipality.

Park Your Pet also asks its users to observe the signage according to the dog rules in effect at each location.

“There are more than 100 dog friendly parks, walking tracks and coastline reserves throughout the City and the Park Your Pet app includes information on the best open spaces for your four-legged friends,” Cr Kylie Grzybek, who chairs the community health and safety portfolio, said.

“There are currently around 700 people in the City of Greater Geelong who are using the application on their smart phones – with some users forming dog-walking play groups that visit different parks in the City each week.”

The app can be downloaded free through the Apple App Store and Google Play.

For more information, head to geelongaustralia.com.au/pets.