Who let the dogs out? Holmes Beach celebrates the grand opening of a bigger dog park

No one could say for sure if it was intentional, malicious or wholly accidental.

However, it sure seemed suspicious that several dogs would run to a picture of a cat on a sign at Cat Town’s vendor booth and lift their legs to do their business on the pictured feline to kick off their first day of play at the opening of Holmes Beach’s brand new dog park on Saturday.

Perhaps it was just oppawtunity or pawsibly it was the meowsic playing, “Who Let the Dogs Out,” in the background that made them a little more fur-ocious than normal.

Fortunately no one seemed to mind and dozens of fur babies had a rolling good time at the celebrated grand opening of the new dog park that bears a new name. Scentral Park will now be known as the Holmes Beach Community Dog Park, to coincide with the city’s plans to create a much bigger community park on the property.

The renaming just made sense, said Holmes Beach Mayor Judy Titsworth.

“The community really came together and raised the majority of the funding to make this happen,” Titsworth said. “The community drove this effort so it belongs to the community.”

Holmes Beach Police Chief Bill Tokajer summed it up best by noting, “We are putting the community back into Holmes Beach.”

The new park is where the old park used to be at 6000 Flotilla Dr., but it is significantly bigger. Many people had already started to use the Babe Ruth baseball field that was adjacent to the old park for more space. Since the island doesn’t have a Babe Ruth team, the community had been asking for a bigger dog park.

“It’s a much bigger, more beautiful dog park,” Titsworth said.

It was not an easy task coming to the final design, as opinions varied greatly on what the park should include. Ultimately, compromises were made to include mostly grass space with some sandy strips and the old dugouts are now modernized seating for the humans.

The design includes one water feature in the form of a fire hydrant with a button on top that will shower out water for those upcoming dog days of summer, but there are also plenty of water fountains on site for both humans and dogs.

But Saturday’s celebration was just the beginning of a broader design to make entire city field area to the north of city hall an all-encompassing community park.

On Feb. 15, the city will celebrate the official grand opening of their modernized skate park and in April, a new “Tot Park,” for younger children will open. In between all of that and the dog park, the city is moving the old baseball field to create a multi-use field that can be used for softball, soccer or other activities.

“Everybody’s ecstatic and we’re really excited about all these grand openings,” Titsworth said.

Manatee County Commissioner Carol Whitmore was on hand for the celebration and praised Titsworth, the city commission and staff for making it all happen.

“It really warms my heart to see what I see today,” Whitmore said.

Despite the early disagreements between dog-owner factions, Titsworth said it showed just how important a new dog park was to the community.

“Dogs are people’s children now,” she said. “This is a way for people to meet their neighbors because they meet through introducing their dogs.”

Evin Janik was helping her mom out on Saturday. Her mom owns Running Rover pet sitting and walking services and was one of several vendors on hand for the celebration.

“This is really fantastic to see all these local dogs out here having a great time,” Janik said. “It’s great for the dogs, but also for the community because it’s an opportunity to bring the community together.”

This story was originally published January 25, 2020 at 12:58 PM.