Runway Dog Exercise Area is a dog park’s dog park.  
It’s big.  It’s fenced in.  It’s monitored by county
rangers.  There are benches with umbrellas and
picnic tables and a roofed kiosk.  It has poop bag
dispensers.    The park even has its own
porta-potty.  The Runway Dog Exercise Area
exceeds expectations in every way shape and
form, except for the following minor drawbacks:
The Runway Dog Exercise Area is loud!  As you
may have inferred from the park’s name, this dog
park is in the landing and take off path of one of
Mitchell International’s main runways.  The
Runway Dog Exercise Area is also chronically
plagued by poison ivy, for which it spends several
days a year closed down for pesticide spraying.  
This park is also at the end of a very long gravel access road which is
pockmarked by suspension challenging potholes.  But the main complaint
I hear from park goers, amid the many compliments mind you,  is the
mud holes dilemma.  Huge, gaping holes in the park are very often filled
to the brim with dog coffee (muddy water) after it rains.  Yellow labs
become chocolate labs in these backward baths.  I’ve seen show dogs
wallow like pigs until they are thick with black mud to the horror of their
owners.  Park managers have made attempts to section off the mud holes
by employing snow fencing.  These precautions have been undermined by
the dogs themselves, natural diggers that they are.  So much so the areas
inside the snow fences are dryer and more dog-park-like than the muddy
dug up zones around them.  But this is all, like I said, minor compared to
the grandeur and convenience of 26 acres of pure dog heaven so close to
home.  Walk your dog around the mud holes, check this site for spraying
times, invest in a pair or good ear plugs and Enjoy.  Click here for a
Picture of the self registration permit envelope.  This envelope shows the
fees and is available at the blue payment tube near the small dog area.