Harry Downes Field

There is a track, with field in the middle (soccer, football, lacrosse)
The addition of the playground for the little ones is very nice, so families with all age kids can go.
Adjacent to the track is a fenced in dog park, through Brookline GreenDog.
Summer hours for dog park are sunrise — 1pm (used for school sports after 2pm)
Winter hours for dog park are sunrise — sunset
great spot to workout, play with the kids, get a game of pick-​up football, or just let the pup run around.

We went to Harry Downes yesterday with our medium-​sized rescue hound. Half of Harry Downes has a fenced-​in dog partk 9a-​1p and there weren’t as many dogs as at Aspinwall, so it was a nice place for our rescue to learn that playing with other dogs is fun. There are a couple hilly areas and a small building that the dogs can run out of sight, which makes me nervous, but I would definitely go again.

Great fenced-​in playing field for dogs to run free (in the picture, the dog area is the baseball field next to the track — if you park in the lot on Pond street, you’ll need to walk up Jamaica and over). Our visit today was cut short by someone informing us that the park was closed (oops — somehow I had missed the enormous sign). They’re trying to get the grass to grow. I’m all for that, so we’ll wait a little while before heading back (and, we’ll be back!). I love that it’s right there along the Emerald Necklace. Outside of the park there are plenty of paths for walking/​jogging. Great area.

I take my lil’guy here on the weekends & he loves loves loves to run and run. It’s so nice to have a wide open space handy since he doesn’t get nearly enough exercise all cooped up in my apartment all week!
The only negative experience we had was when someone showed up, let their humongous dog off the leash & my dog approached and was attacked. Then the woman proceeded to tell me her dog doesn’t like little dogs. hm.
Now we’re very cautious and so’s the dog!
I totally recommend this park for some great off-​leash exercise and socializing!

Our behemoth puppy had a fantastic time on his play date with Kelly G. and Anastasia R.‘s Boston Terriers. Like Kelly said, the field is giant, so your dog can really tear it up and run around like the lunatic he is. For a pup like ours, this is key. You chuck the tennis ball as far as it will go and watch his giraffe legs lumber on after it. Unless there are other dogs hanging out, then you just watch him play chase.
The crowd is hit or miss. The first time I went there were a lot of Brookline uptight middle agers with similarly uptight medium sized dogs who didn’t really want to play with our exuberant pup. But isn’t the point of a dog park playing with other dogs? Anyway, the next time we went was awesome. There were a few folks there with dogs of all shapes and sizes, and the vibe was excellent. The dogs weren’t perfect, there was one who took a ball of ours and wouldn’t give it up, causing his owner some distress. But we didn’t care, and the dogs were all having a good time running around despite the crazy cold. We will definitely be back repeatedly, hopefully with friends and their friendly dogs.

I’m not sure what the Harry Downes field is like the rest of the time, but from sun-​up to 1pm it’s a dog park. An *enormous*, fully fenced, go-​dog-​go sort of experience.
Some good friends of ours just adopted a dog who they were told was fully grown but has gained 10 pounds in the 2 weeks that they’ve had him and has *enormous* paws. He’s gonna be a whopper.
We have two tiny and sometimes a little hyper dogs that love the chase and be chased game.
Three words that fix everything — puppy play date.
On a brisk (ok it was 15 degrees) morning last week, we took the three dogs to the Harry Downes and let them go. It was great to see them wrestling and chasing– even our littlest one went into a big snow drift after a ball (even though she’s usually prissy about the cold).
It was great fun and there were a handful of dogs there despite the temperature.
It’s a little hidden away in Brookline off rte 9, but still pretty near JP. We’ll definitely going back– especially if our big-​dog-​owning friends have anything to say about it.
Minus a star for the hours. I’d like to see a dedicated dog area, but these are often small and not as nice as this park is.