Better Dog Parks in Your Neighbourhood: How Snifr Wants to Help Local Councils

Does your local dog park have no water fountain? Has the fence had a hole in it for months? Is there no shade at all in summer, or is the nearest park a twenty-minute walk away? If you have a dog, you've probably thought one of these things on a walk. And you've probably also thought that nobody ever tells the council — or that, if they do, it's a one-off complaint that gets lost.

In this article we explain how the information the Snifr community shares every day about dog parks, dog runs and dog-friendly spaces already helps other owners choose where to walk, and what our next step is: turning that data into useful information for local councils, so they can improve the spaces that already exist and plan new ones where they're really needed.

Nobody knows a park better than the people who walk their dog there every day.

The problem: dog spaces are designed without data

In many cities, decisions about dog areas are made with very little information:

• Councils know where dog runs are, but not what state they're in. Whether they have water, shade or a decent fence usually only comes out when someone complains.
• Nobody knows how much they're used. A park that's packed every morning and one nobody visits count the same in an inventory.
• Nobody knows where they're missing. Neighbourhoods with lots of dogs and no space nearby don't show up on any map… until the conflict with neighbours has already started.
• Feedback arrives in bits and pieces. A complaint here, a formal request there: hard to compare and prioritise.

The result is spaces designed with good intentions but without listening to the people who use them: areas with no shade, no water, no separation between big and small dogs, or placed where there's little demand.

What the Snifr community already shares about every park

Snifr is an app for people with dogs. As well as tracking their walks, meeting dogs in their neighbourhood and arranging walks together, users build the map of parks and dog spaces together. Today, for every park, the community can:

• Vote on its facilities: whether it's fenced, has water or a fountain, shade, a small-dog area and a big-dog area, agility, benches, lighting, bags and whether it's clean.
• Describe its vibe: quiet, lively, social, good for puppies, family-friendly, with dogs that run a lot or with rough play… and even warn that reactive dogs are sometimes around.
• Upload photos and vote for the ones that represent it best.
• Leave comments with tips and warnings.
• Suggest new parks that weren't on the map yet.
• Log visits during walks, which shows which parks are used most and how many dogs are in a park right now.

All of this already serves a very concrete purpose: helping each owner choose the park that best suits their dog. A shy puppy doesn't need the same as a high-energy dog.

Our next step: useful data for local councils

This is the part we're most excited about. In the future we want to make this information available to local councils, always anonymous and aggregated, so they can make better decisions about dog spaces. Some examples of what it could provide:

1. The real condition of every park and dog run

Which spaces have water, shade, lighting or a decent fence according to the people who use them, and which keep getting reports of dirt or lack of maintenance. A living inventory instead of a static list.

2. Which spaces are used (and which aren't)

How many visits each area gets, at what times and in which seasons. That helps prioritise investment: improve the busiest spaces first, or understand why others stay empty.

3. Where dog spaces are missing

By combining where people walk with where parks are, it's possible to spot neighbourhoods with lots of dog activity and no suitable space nearby. They're the natural candidates for creating new areas.

4. Concrete proposals for improvements and new spaces

Based on all of the above, we want to prepare concrete proposals: what each park is missing (a fountain, shade, separate areas by size…) and where it would make sense to open a new dog run or dog park, with the data to back it up.

A dog run with water, shade and a good fence isn't a luxury: it's how neighbours with and without dogs get along.

Privacy: data about parks, not about people

We want to be very clear about this. What would be valuable to a council is what state parks are in and how they're used, not who uses them. That's why any information we share will be:

• Anonymous: no names, profiles, photos of people or contact details.
• Aggregated: overall numbers (visits per area, time slots, facility ratings), never individual walks or routes.
• GDPR-compliant and explained transparently to users before it's launched.

Why this benefits the whole neighbourhood

• Dog owners: better-kept parks, more fountains and shade, and spaces where they're really needed.
• Neighbours without dogs: when there are good dog spaces, there are fewer off-lead dogs where they shouldn't be and fewer conflicts in squares and playgrounds.
• Councils: decisions based on real data, better-prioritised investment and an easy way to listen to a very large part of the population.
• Dogs: who, in the end, appreciate it the most.

How you can help today

Every vote, photo and comment counts. The more people share what the parks in their neighbourhood are like, the more complete the picture and the stronger the proposals:

1. Download Snifr and track your walks.
2. Vote on the facilities of the parks you visit: does it have water, shade, a fence…?
3. Upload a photo if the park doesn't have one yet.
4. Suggest the parks missing from the map.
5. Leave a comment if something is broken or could be improved.

Frequently asked questions

Does Snifr already share data with councils?
Not yet. It's a future project. When we launch it we'll explain it in detail, and always with anonymous, aggregated data.

What data could councils see?
Overall information about parks: facilities as rated by users, level of use, time slots and areas where spaces are missing. Never personal data or individual routes.

Can I suggest a park that isn't on the map?
Yes. From the app you can add a new park or dog run, and the rest of the community will be able to see it, vote on it and upload photos.

I work for a council — how can we collaborate?
Get in touch through our contact page: we'd love to talk about improving dog spaces in your area together.

Better parks start by listening to the people who use them

Your dog already knows which park they like best. Now help us make sure the council knows too.

👉 Download Snifr and start improving the parks in your neighbourhood