Ala Wai Dog Park

Our dog loves it here. She just wanders around sniffing the other dogs, but she gets so excited when she realizes this is where we are going, that sniffing other dogs must be a her idea of a great afternoon.
They have a nice chained area for off leash, divided between the big dog side and the little dog side. There is a water spigot, so bring a bowl.

Considering it is by Waikiki the size is acceptable. However I still think it is way too small for runner dogs to have fun running in it.

Okay for what it was but definitely predominantly little fluff balls. They are cute but most owners refuse to let my bigger dog anywhere near them.

Park is small and there are a lot of homeless in the area. A bit hard to find, especially if you use the address provided by Unilocal.Park between the Ala Wai Park and the Ala Wai Elementary School. Walk to the canal and you will see some community gardens on the left. Follow the paved pathway past the gardens a short distance and you will see the dog park on your left. There is a large and small dog side, but when we visited today the gate dividing them was wide open. Not really safe, if the intention is to separate the dogs by size. That gate should be kept locked. Note that the park is closed for maintenance every Tuesday from 7 am to 12 pm.

As far as dog parks go it’s ok. Parking is a far ways off so make sure your dogs are leashed even if they are good walkers. When you get there the big and small dogs are usually separated if there are too many big dogs. Small dogs can go in either. The grounds are fairly small but they can get a good running. I haven’t seen it very grassy rather kind of patchy. There is a water fountain but there is no station to get baggies. I was thinking of joining the volunteers ranks and maybe provide some well needed items. But things get taken away from either the custodians or patrons. I also want to make a wooden bench but I don’t know if there are any requirements for me to do so. The doggie camaraderie is there. It’s a great place for both pet and owner to relax, unwind and socialize. Sorry my verbs are past and present.

Ala Wai Dog Park has deteriorated from the time it opened until now. No one is maintaining the park — overgrown grass or no grass at all, graffiti on signage and trash cans, consistent muddy patch in the large dog area (underground leak?). Also heard from a friend that their dogs came home with ticks after playing in the park.
Bottom line — volunteers, who vowed to take care of the park, have done nothing for quite some time. After all that hoopla at the grand opening, you’d think those who worked so hard to build a dog park would still care.

I’ve been to a number of dog parks over the island … over the years. I always come back to Ala Wai because it consistently has lots of other little dogs for my canine terror to play with. They could use a little better up keep … but otherwise I’m a fan!

I used to love this park. The first time I took Bud here was in November, 2014. The park, I believe, was fairly new at the time, so there was plenty of grass. It was a very good experience, and I enjoyed watching Bud run around and make friends. I continued to take Bud here (among visiting other parks), because of the convenience of the location and hours.
I live in town, so driving to this park is very easy for me. Also, there are some days in which I do not get out of work until close to 8pm, and this park is open until 10pm, so it was another good factor.
Here’s why the park lost stars: LACK OF MAINTENANCE.
Today was my first day back after about two months of staying the heck away from this place. I hoped that in the several weeks I stayed away from this park, SOMEBODY would have stepped in to maintain the park. What’s the main problem?
There is little to NO GRASS left at this park! My dog, being a frequent dog park goer, got very injured from running around in this park one Saturday afternoon in late February. The reason is due to the fact that the grass is almost completely gone, and all that is left is hard dirt. His paws were completely blistered, and all of the skin peeled off! He couldn’t walk for two days, and had to be carried in and out of my apartment building just to use the bathroom. Otherwise, he just slept the entire time because he was so miserable.
I didn’t get any pictures of the blisters, because I was too busy trying to take care of him. I did, however, get several pictures of the park both in November when there was still grass, and today, when the grass is almost all gone. Hopefully this gets fixed soon, because I had such high expectations about this park, but it is continuously proving to be a disappointment.
PROS:
1. Location (in town!)
2. Hours (open early, closes late)
3. Has a Water Spigot
CONS:
1. Poorly Maintained (depleting amount of grass)
2. Hidden (most people get lost on their walk to even find the place)
3. Size (far too small and gets cramped when busy)
4. Not Safe at Night (bring a buddy aside from your dog)
5. No Shade

Terrible park! Very small. It has two parts. The one for small dogs is bigger than the one for all other dogs. Not quite sure what the logic is. It hardly has any shade, the grass is totally dry and therefore very dusty and there is no water source for the dogs! Definetly not good for medium or big dogs. Not comming back!

Love it here! Take my dog here all the time

Very brand new and pristine, let’s keep it that way! Fenced in gate exclusive for small dogs and another fenced in gate for larger dogs… Good for my morkie!

The muddy patch has been fixed. Upping my review to 5-​stars :)

Kevin Costner and I love the dog park by our house. He loves to run, play and pee on trees.
The big dogs and little dogs are separated so you don’t have to worry. It’s clean and new.
Kevin hasn’t gotten fleas or anything from it so yea!
I love the walk along the Ala Wai and the nice people at the dog park.

Nice for town. Super small! Really it’s just a chain link fence set up in the corner of the park. The dogs love it though! You will too as long as you forget your standing next to the ala wai…

It’s a great place if you live in town and need to let your dog’s run. But it is small compared to the Hawaii Kai dog park.
Pros:
— very clean and lots of poop bags of you forget yours
–it’s in town
–easy to get to and find
— benches to sit (1 per side)
–separate sides for large dogs and small
— more grass than dirt (compared to the salt lake dog park)
Cons:
–sadly there are homeless in the bushes.
— No water spigot (there is one if you walk toward the small green houses the school owns in the west side of the park)
— small

After reading all the newspaper articles, I was pretty excited about this dog park. We go to Diamond Head usually but it is not always the cleanest and we liked the idea of going to a different area. We recently decided to bring our little dog Coco Puff over here on an afternoon we were feeling too lazy to walk her. One of our favorite parts about the dog park is that we can just sit while she gets all of her energy out. So we drove over & realized immediately we had no idea where to park to get to the dog park. We finally figured out which lot was closest and brought our excited dog down the path. As we approached, we were soon quite let down. We walked up to two tiny fenced in areas, connected by a gate square; one was for the little dogs, one for big. Coco Puff is smaller so we walked into the very crowded, backyard sized fenced yard for her. She excitedly ran around with all the dogs and did her business which is great. But to be honest, we could bring her to any big empty space outside and she would probably be stoked to run around. Its not like the dogs are the picky ones — its us humans! There are no benches, no water bowls. There was a nice a supply of bags. But I have so much appreciation for being able to sit and relax while my dog has her fun. We only stayed about 30 minutes; it was simply too small of a space for the amount of people who use the park. As excited as we were, we’ll probably stick to diamond head or the humane society. They are just more satisfying for both us and our beloved pup. #takedownthefence

After driving all the way out to Hawaii Kai Sunday afternoon to have it start pouring rain, decided to try to venture back towards town to check the Ala Wai dog park (Humane Society dog park closes at 4pm on the weekends, so no-​go). No rain in the waikiki area so now just have to find this place…
I used the location listed on Unilocal,but was so confused as to where this place actually is… Saw a few other people also looking for the park as well after entering the strange backwards-​seeming one-​way entry.
I began walking with kiyoshi down the path past the baseball field, community gardens & playground areas… seemed to have been walking quite a ways… still unsure if that was even the right way to go, asked a man near by with a dog if I was going the right way to the park. He said its further, keep going.
Walking some more along the path by the ala wai, we finally arrived at the park — all the way down the path, beside Kozuki stadium. Its pretty small, but seemed well kept. There were several small dogs — less than 18 lbs, a lot of toy and mini breeds that you usually don’t see at the bigger dog parks here.
This page:
provides better info about where the park actually is since the address on Unilocal is sort of a bit of a walk from the park.
Although the park seems to be the smallest of the off-​leash dog parks I’ve been to, there was many dogs in the small dog side & the hours for the park are pretty convenient — 5AM to 10PM.
Next time I go, I will keep going a little bit further down Kapiolani — and turn into the park parkinglot on University instead so I can spend more time at the park and less time walking there.

All of the dog park reviews posted before today 9÷28÷14 can now be deleted just like the field dog park was as of today.
The new official doggy park that some good people have tirelessly worked to get for many years had its official grand opening today.
The regulars are good friendly people and dogs.
The new park has nice new chain-​link fence, trees for shade, and nice grass. All in all it is a lovely park.
So why only 2 stars? It is SMALL. If the large/​small dog sides were not separated it would be an ok but smaller size dog park. Divided in half like it is? Forget about throwing a ball very far at all. The Mililani and Diamond head parks are both probably about 4−5x the size.
It may be ok for really little dogs but big dogs are going to be severely cramped. Certainly they do not have enough room to stretch out into a full run for even a couple seconds.
I’m actually sad it opened. I loved the old field.

Don’t park in the first parking lot that says one way. Not sure why they would design a parking spot to have the exit only be the first driveway before the entrance only, but you will get pulled over if you don’t know this already. Thank goodness I didn’t get a ticket.
Though the area is spacious, I like smaller dog parks where I don’t have to worry how far my dog will run.

Great place to bring our dog for a little bit of socializing and exercise.
Lots of space to run around on grass as far as the eye can see.
The first few times we brought our dog here we kept him on a leash.
However, after constantly seeing lots of dogs running «commando»,
we decided to give it a try. The second we took off his leash,
he ran off like he was escaping Shawshank State Prison. Like a
child, if you chase them they will think it’s a game and keep going.
So I started running off in the opposite direction, and thankfully it worked.
He still does a «Shawshank» once in awhile, but luckily he never runs
off too far, and comes back.
The only negatives I can think about this park would be the parking is
sometimes hard to find, and owners not picking up after their dogs.
Otherwise, this is one of the best dog parks we’ve been to.