Lifetimes Page 1 of 3 October 13, 2003 Click for sub-menu Home Features Leisure Time Bark Free: A new book lists the Movies best places to walk your dog in Dining Out the Baltimore area Visual Arts 04/09/03 Music By Pete Pichaske Theater/Dance It's a chilly winter day in Baltimore, with Up & Coming snow on the ground and temperatures in Letters the 20s. But to the dozen or so dogs romping in Robert E. Lee Park, it might as Archives well be springtime in the Garden of Eden. Find a Home New! They wrestle and bark. They chase and Community Links sniff. They frolic and play and dash about, Weather and their owners look on like proud parents. Classifieds Shop! Public Notices "Dogs are living creatures and they need Coupons a place to run and be free," said Jessica Silverberg, 23, whose dog Cola, a shepherd mix, is among the Contact Us happy pack of canines. Other Publications "It's a great place for them to socialize," agreed Beth Maeyer, 25, who is at the park with her boxer, Kaiya. Baltimore - Baltimore- Washington International Airport, MD "On a nice day, this big open area here is full of dogs. There might be 30 out here." For Silverberg and Maeyer _ and for Cola and Kaiya _ Robert E. Passing Clouds 72 ° Lee Park, tucked between Falls Road and Lake Roland just north Weather Center of Baltimore City, deserves the title bestowed in a recently by CustomWeather published book: The best place to walk your dog in the Baltimore area. Search The book is "A Bark in the Park: The 50 Best Places to Hike With Your Dog in the Baltimore Region." It was researched, written and published by Delaware author and entrepreneur Doug Gelbert, who, among other enterprises, runs Cruden Bay Books. http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpid=812&show=archivedetails&Archiv... 10/13/2003 Lifetimes Page 2 of 3 News The latest in a series of dog-walking guides, the book was Search tips Advanced published late last year. True to the title, it ranks the top 50 places to walk your dog in greater Baltimore. Features But the book is more than a dry listing of parks. Each entry Local TV Listings includes a history of the park, detailed directions, a description of the trails, swimming possibilities (for dogs, of course), and more. Some entries also include additional, frequently quirky bits of information aimed at enticing visitors. The Lee Park entry, for example, besides declaring the park "the unofficial Baltimore dog park," points out that visitors can sit on a Greek revival structure, built as a valve house in 1862, and view the stone dam that created Lake Roland. In addition, the book includes advice on hiking with your dog (how to avoid ticks, whether to use dog booties, etc.), a section on particularly interesting sights at some of the parks (the gun battery at Fort Howard Park in east Baltimore County and the bald eagles at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Anne Arundel County, for example) and tips on taking your dog to the beach. It also includes a list of parks that exclude dogs _ which could come in handy for dog-haters looking to avoid canines on their solitary hikes. In truth, you don't need a dog to get some use out of "A Bark in the Park," which could serve as a guide to lesser-known, lesser- visited hiking areas for anyone interested in a walk in the park. For author Gelbert, however, the book's target audience is dog owners. "There are a lot of dog owners out there who are adventuresome enough that they want to get past the neighborhood park," said Gelbert. "They want to find a better place to walk with their dog." The Baltimore book is the latest in an expanding series of dog- walking guides and grew out of the author's own experiences, as a dog-owner and a hiker. Gelbert, 45, said he had been walking his dog in Delaware parks for 15 years when, a few years ago, a fellow owner recommended a small, isolated park. Her dog, she told him, loved it, and so did she. "It was five minutes away and I had never heard of it," recalled Gelbert in a recent telephone interview. "I went looking and when I found it, it had the best trails I'd ever seen in Delaware, outside a couple state parks. "It struck me that, at the risk of solitude, this was something that other people should know about." http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpid=812&show=archivedetails&Archiv... 10/13/2003 Lifetimes Page 3 of 3 Gelbert wrote and published books on dog walking in Delaware and Philadelphia before setting his sights on Baltimore. Close to his home base, an urban area with tens of thousands of dog- owners, Charm City was a natural subject. For the Baltimore book, he took a half-dozen short trips to the area. To get his information, he visited green areas on the map, seeing each first -hand, and quizzing dog owners he'd meet on the park's amenities and friendliness to dogs _ and on what other parks in the area were good for dogs. The result is 160 pages long and sells for $12.95 on the Web at hikewithyourdog.com and at local Barnes & Noble bookstores. The first printing of the book was 1,000, said Gelbert. While it has yet to go into a second printing, the book is selling "very well," he said. Gelbert, who also owns a couple of dog-washing shops in Delaware, already has authors working on dog-walking guides for Atlanta, El Paso and a few other areas. In fact, he hopes to publish a half-dozen new guides a year for the foreseeable future. "I think people love them," he said. As proof, he cites an encounter he had with a couple walking their dog in an isolated Philadelphia park a few years ago, while he was doing research for the Philly guide. The couple recognized his dog, which was pictured on the already- published Delaware guides. "Almost the first words out of their mouths were, `You're not going to write about this place, are you?'," recalled Gelbert. He did, of course. No doubt his latest book will annoy some local dog-owners, who treasure their solitary walks with their pet and are loathe to have their favorite park discovered by hordes of fellow walkers. But to others, the more the merrier. At least that would be the case for the dogs at Robert E. Lee Park. 'Dogs are living creatures and they need a place to run and be free.' Jessica Silverberg ©2002 MyWebPal.com. All rights reserved. Contact us at [email protected] All other trademarks and Registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpid=812&show=archivedetails&Archiv... 10/13/2003 sunspot.net - Robert E. Lee Memorial Park Page 1 of 3 Search/Archive Site Map About Us Contact Us Home Delivery Advertise News E-mail to a friend Events Business Sports Robert E. Lee Memorial Park Today Falls Road at Lakeside Drive, Baltimore Arts/Life This weekend Today 410-396-7931 Live! Next 7 days Arts/Society Robert E. Lee Park is a dog walker's paradise. This is All dates Home/Family Travel where posh pooches and their owners meet and Movies/Video greet. Most of the humans who frequent the park are Music/Nightlife too busy flirting to curb their dogs, so it's usually wise Search events by keyword Restaurants/Food Art/Museums to wear old tennis shoes if you're planning to stop by Theater/Dance for a quick jog or power walk. More innocent hikers Books may also want to avoid the trails in spring, as they Visitors' Guide TV/Media tend to be ripe with hormone-raging canines, as well Search places and Crossword as humans in a, ahem, similar state. businesses by keyword Horoscope Opinion Having a dog is by no means a requirement for Marketplace enjoying this amazingly accessible 456.43-acre chunk of nature. Park along Lakeside Drive and cross EVENT CALENDAR the footpath that overlooks Lake Roland Dam. Hikers OCTOBER Registration can opt to continue uphill to the loop overrun with Print Edition frisky dog walkers or they can choose the trail that S M T W T F S Wireless Edition 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Corrections hugs Lake Roland, once Baltimore's chief drinking SunSource Store water supply. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Search/Archive 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 Site Map About Us This trail crosses light rail tracks, but it eventually 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Contact Us becomes a solitary (if somewhat marshy) escape. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Home Delivery There are a number of mile-long side trail options Advertise available. Some circle the lake and offer views of Map/directions SunDial fishermen. Other trails venture deeper into the FAQs woods. The paths tend to be rocky, muddy and narrow, but the bird watching is supreme. Ducks, geese, woodpeckers and herons are frequently spotted. There are also some quaint footbridges and tunnels that are great for photo ops. Depending on the route, the trail can extend up to six miles, but it isn't a loop, so be sure to allow enough daylight and energy to return safely. --Amanda Krotki Hours: Dusk to dawn, daily.