{"id":60994,"date":"2020-05-20T16:58:01","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T20:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/?p=60994"},"modified":"2020-05-20T16:58:01","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T20:58:01","slug":"the-dog-park-is-open-again-should-you-use-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/local\/gta\/the-dog-park-is-open-again-should-you-use-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The dog park is open again. Should you use it?"},"content":{"rendered":"
For\u00a0those who have been living under lockdown the past nine weeks or so, the isolation\u00a0has,\u00a0in some cases, included the family dog.<\/p>\n
Many provinces and cities closed off-leash dog parks in March to lessen the risk of overcrowding by the dogs’ humans and to encourage physical distancing.<\/p>\n But over the past two weeks, as restrictions on\u00a0businesses and public spaces have begun easing, off-leash areas have reopened\u00a0too \u2014 including in Vancouver and other parts of B.C., Edmonton, Saskatchewan\u00a0and Halifax. Ontario, including Toronto, reopened off-leash parks on Tuesday.<\/p>\n That’s a good thing, says Dr. Scott Weese, a\u00a0veterinary microbiologist at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, Ont., in terms of people getting out and dogs getting exercise again, while still maintaining physical distancing measures.<\/p>\n But Weese says\u00a0the reopening should come with\u00a0some precautions.<\/p>\n “We can’t just go back to normal. There’s going to be a new normal for quite a while,” he said.<\/p>\n