Richmond BC Dog Parks and Pet Services

Biscuit is a rescue, mostly terrier as far as anyone has been able to guess, about thirty-five pounds of opinions. She arrived at roughly two years old with a permanent grudge against skateboards and an unshakeable conviction that every gull on the dock is her personal responsibility. We walk the West Dyke Trail most mornings. That is the honest basis for all of this: I am not a trainer and I have no credentials, I am just someone who has walked the same handful of Richmond routes several hundred times in every kind of weather this delta produces.

The boring part first, because it matters

Richmond's off-leash rules are specific, they are signed, and they get revised. The city designates a small number of off-leash areas, and everywhere else, including all of the dykes, all of the shoreline and the whole of Steveston village, your dog is meant to be on a leash. I have watched bylaw officers work the West Dyke on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It is not a rumour. Before you count on a particular park being off-leash, check the City of Richmond's parks pages, because the list changes and I would rather be vague here than be the reason you get a ticket.

The other administrative business: Richmond requires a dog licence, renewed each year. It is not a formality. It is the mechanism by which a lost dog comes home in an hour instead of a week. Get the microchip registered too, and actually update the address when you move. I moved four blocks within Steveston once and did not bother updating anything for months, which was stupid, and I knew it was stupid at the time.

The off-leash parks

King George Park is where I go when Biscuit needs to run flat out rather than trot. It is enclosed, it is well used, and the crowd at eight in the morning is the regular crowd, which means most of the dogs know each other and most of the humans know whose dog is which. It is also a mud pit from November through March. Everyone there knows this and dresses for it.

Minoru Park has an off-leash area as well, and it is the sensible option if you live anywhere near City Centre and do not want to drive. It is smaller and busier and there are more brand-new dogs in it, which cuts both ways. Better socialising if your dog is easy, more work if your dog is not. Terra Nova has an off-leash section up at the north end, which is my pick when I want the run and the long walk in the same trip, because the dyke starts right there.

What I would say about all three is that the grass is not the point. The people standing on it are. Go twice at the same hour and you will know.

The dykes are the real dog infrastructure

On leash, but this is where Richmond genuinely beats most of Metro Vancouver for walking a dog. It is flat, it goes on for kilometres, and there are four or five distinct routes with completely different characters.

The West Dyke Trail runs about five and a half kilometres from Garry Point up to Terra Nova, with the marsh and the tide flats on one side and back fences on the other. It is the pretty one and it is also completely exposed. There is no shelter anywhere along it, and when the wind comes off the water in January it feels personal. Cyclists use it heavily, so a long retractable lead in the narrow sections is a bad idea and you will be told so, correctly.

The Railway Greenway follows the old interurban corridor up Railway Avenue from the village. Paved, straight, hedges and houses the whole way. Less to look at, considerably more shelter, and it is what I switch to when the dyke is unwalkable. The South Dyke Trail, heading east from the village out along Dyke Road past London's Landing, is my favourite and almost nobody uses it. Gravel underfoot, log booms in the river, tugs shoving barges up the south arm, and a river smell that is not always a good smell. Biscuit prefers it because there are more interesting things dead in the grass.

At the north end, the Middle Arm dyke past the Oval toward Bridgeport is the urban version. Wide, paved, joggers, planes low overhead on the approach to the airport. And Shell Road Trail cuts north to south through the middle of the city on another old rail line, which is a genuinely useful way to give a dog forty minutes without getting in a car.

Mud, salt and the two-towel system

From November to March you will need two towels in the boot of the car. One for feet, one for everything else, and do not try to make one towel do both jobs. The silt on the south dyke is a pale clay-grey that gets onto upholstery and stays there. After Garry Point, rinse the salt and sand out of her feet, because the sand between the pads is what causes the limping two days later, not the walk itself.

One warning that is worth taking seriously. The tide flats off the West Dyke look walkable at low water and they are not. That silt is deep, and the water comes back across it faster than seems reasonable. Keep your dog on the trail side of the grass line.

Where I take her when I want company

Steveston, obviously. Moncton Street and Bayview in the shoulder seasons are about as dog-friendly as anywhere in Metro Vancouver gets, in the informal way where half the shops keep a water bowl by the door and nobody comments on a wet dog. The rules are the rules, though: dogs do not go inside food premises here, so this is a takeout-window and patio activity, and you should ask on a patio rather than assume.

Pajo's Fish & Chips at the wharf is the easy one because you were always going to eat standing up anyway, and Garry Point Grill & Fish 'N' Chips does the same job at the other end of the walk. In summer the ice cream lineups are the actual social event of the village, and you will end up in one of them at Timothy's Frozen Yogurt or Screamers Soft Serve & Treats, holding a leash in one hand and something melting in the other. Britannia Brewing Steveston has outdoor seating that works in the long evenings. Cannery Cafe is my sit-down default when it is only me. Steveston Bakery is a morning stop, and it is a walk-up, take-it-to-a-bench arrangement, which suits a dog fine.

Pet services, and what I would ask

I am not going to rank groomers for you. I have one, she is booked solid, and she does not need my help. What I can hand over is the set of questions that got me a good one after two bad ones.

For grooming, ask how they dry. Specifically, ask whether a dog is ever left unattended with a cage dryer running, because the answer to that question tells you most of what you need to know about the place. Ask what they do with a dog that panics halfway through. Ask whether you can book a standing appointment, because the good ones fill up and then you are stuck.

For boarding and daycare, book long weekends at least a month out, and expect a decent place to insist on meeting your dog before they will take her. A meet-and-greet or a temperament assessment is a good sign, not an inconvenience. They will want vaccination records. Have them.

For veterinary care, the important part is registering with a clinic before you need one, and asking about after-hours arrangements while you are calm rather than at eleven at night with a dog that has eaten something. Overnight emergency care is not necessarily available in Richmond, and the drive is not the moment to find that out.

The directory here does not yet have a section for vets, groomers or pet shops. That is on me, and when it exists it will be because Richmond people told me who is good rather than because I scraped a list. There is a contact form, and I read it.

Things that catch people out here

Coyotes are around, particularly along the farm edges and the margins of the dykes at dawn and dusk, which is exactly when you are out there. They are not usually a problem for a thirty-five-pound dog. They can be a serious problem for a very small one. Keep it short and keep it close at those hours. Barnacles and broken shell along the wharf edges cut pads. Blackberry canes take over the trail margins in August. The geese leave the grass at Minoru in a state through spring. And on the farmland side of the city, respect the fences, because those are working fields, not a park.

Biscuit's week, for what it is worth, is the dyke most mornings, King George once or twice when I want her properly tired, the Railway Greenway when it is blowing, and the south dyke on a Sunday when I have the time to let her sniff every single thing. That is it. Five routes and a licence tag. It has been enough for six years.