The good guide is the one that
tells you when not to go.

OffLeashMap is a directory of off-leash dog parks. It exists because the existing options are bad. The big aggregators are stub pages with a thumbnail and a paragraph. The city .gov pages are siloed and ugly. The blog listicles are a year out of date and skip the parks you actually need.

We started in Atlanta, Charlotte, and Boston. Each park gets one page. Each page tells you the five things that determine whether it's worth driving to:

• Whether it's fully fenced, partially fenced, or unfenced.
• Whether there's a separately gated small-dog area.
• Whether there's water on site, or you need to bring it.
• How much shade — meaningful in July, irrelevant in January.
• Whether it's lit for early-morning or evening use.

We write the one-liner ourselves. We don't scrape Google reviews and call it editorial. If a park is bad on a hot day, we say so. If a chain park is overpriced for what you get, we say so. If two parks are practically the same, we point you to the better one.

How we build the data

Park metadata (name, address, hours, Google rating, review count) comes from the Google Places API. Filter attributes — fenced, small-dog area, water, shade, lighting — are hand-classified by reading recent reviews and, where possible, visiting in person.

We update parks when readers tell us something has changed: a fence is down, the water fountain is broken, a new section opened. We'd rather be slow than wrong.

How we make money

OffLeashMap shows display ads through Google AdSense to cover hosting. We use affiliate links for pet insurance carriers (Lemonade, Spot, Trupanion, Fetch) — if you click through and sign up, we get a small commission at no cost to you. None of those affiliations change which parks we recommend.

Local businesses (dog daycares, trainers, groomers, vets) can buy featured listings on city pages for a flat monthly rate. These are clearly labeled as featured. We don't take money to favor one public park over another — they aren't businesses and they don't pay us.

What we won't do

We won't publish AI-generated reviews dressed up as human opinion. We won't pretend we have data we don't. We won't mark a park "great for small dogs" because a sponsor asked. The directory only works if you trust the filter badges, and the badges only work if we're honest.

Get in touch

Found a park we missed? Found a filter badge that's wrong? Want to share what we should have warned you about? Email hello@offleashmap.com or use the contact page. We read everything.