Dog Owners Guide to Pitt Meadows

Dogs do well in Pitt Meadows. The town is flat, the dike trails run for long stretches without a road crossing, and the gravel on top keeps nails filed down without wrecking pads. Anyone arriving from somewhere with proper off leash forest will notice what is missing, because what we have instead is open sky, long sightlines and farm fields on both hands. That trade suits some dogs enormously and bores others rigid.

What follows is the over the fence briefing I give new neighbours: where to walk, who to call, and the handful of local hazards that only become obvious the first time they happen to you.

The walks, ranked

1. The Pitt River dike. First for dog owners specifically, even though it is not my favourite human walk. The sightlines are the reason. You can see another dog coming from a very long way off, and if yours is reactive, or still learning, that is worth more than any amount of scenery. Wide, straight, gravel, and usually thinner on foot traffic than the south end of town. Exposed, though, so treat it as a spring and autumn walk rather than a July one.

2. The Fraser dike at Osprey Village. The sociable option, and the one where the walk can be the whole outing rather than a chore. The village sits at the south end of town on the river with shopfronts under the townhouses, so there is somewhere to sit down at the end of it. It is also the busiest stretch of dike in the city on a sunny weekend, so if your dog needs room, come at eight in the morning or take option one.

3. The Alouette dike. Quiet on a weekday, farmland one side, ditch the other, and close enough to home for a lot of people that it becomes the default evening loop. Nothing at either end of it, which is entirely fine when the only goal is a tired dog before bed.

Vets: pick one before you need one

Two small animal practices come up locally, Pitt Meadows Animal Clinic and Meadowvale Animal Hospital. Their hours are not identical, and hours change, so look up the current ones rather than going on what somebody told you at the trailhead.

The blunt advice is to register with one before you need it. Becoming a new client over the phone while holding a limping dog is a bad way to spend twenty minutes. Work out in advance what you would do outside regular hours as well, because a town this size is not going to have every door open at two in the morning, and that is a much harder thing to solve at two in the morning than it is on a Tuesday.

Where a dog is genuinely welcome

Patios are the usual answer, and in practice it comes down to the season, the layout and whoever is on shift. Foamers' Folly Brewing Co. is the one I would try first on a warm afternoon, and Stomping Grounds Cafe & Bistro is the other name that comes up for an outdoor table. Either way, ask at the door rather than assuming, and take the answer gracefully. That is a short list and I am not going to pad it, because nineteen thousand people do not support a long one.

Two other names worth having. Coastal Collective + Co is a good detour when you want something small for the dog, or a present for a person, on the way home. And for the photographs you will wish you had taken sooner, Capture Photography Studio is the local place to ask about a session.

Local hazards, in order of how often they catch people out

• Drainage ditches. They are everywhere, they are deeper than they look, and the sides are steep and slick. A dog that goes in after a duck does not always get itself back out.
• The field is a workplace. Most land beside the dikes is Agricultural Land Reserve: livestock, working farm dogs, tractors, sprayers. Leash up, close gates, and do not let a retrieve go over a fence.
• Silent bikes. Gravel, a tailwind and a rider who never learned to call out. If you hear nothing, that is not evidence of nothing.
• No shade whatsoever. None of these trails have any. In July the dikes are an early morning and late evening proposition, and the gravel holds heat long after the air has cooled.
• Off leash rules. Where it is permitted is a City decision and it does change. Check the City's own parks information rather than trusting what a neighbour told you three years ago.

The seasonal stuff

Spring is puddle season on the approaches and the trails stay soft for weeks. Summer is heat and, out among the fields, farm machinery working late. Autumn is the best walking of the year here and almost nobody is out in it. Winter is wind off the water and short days, which means a lot of evening walking in the dark; a light on the collar is not optional on a dike with cyclists.

If you remember one thing

Register with a vet this month, use the Pitt River dike when you need room and the Osprey Village stretch when you want company, and treat every ditch as deeper than it looks. The rest of it you will work out within a fortnight.