| “ | Citizens are not even supposed to be consciously aware of the dog park, so they could not possibly be receiving a menacing and unearthly voice instructing listeners to bring precious metals and toddlers to the dog park! DOG PARK, that could NEVER, EVER BE REAL. | ” |
|
– Mayor Pamela Winchell | ||
The Dog Park is a public city work announced by the City Council in the Pilot, and mentioned in several episodes thereafter. The first thing we learn about Night Vale is that dogs and people are not allowed in the dog park, nor is acknowledging the existence of it. It is implied time moves differently within the dog park, and that it possibly occupies another dimension.
Appearance
Located at the corner of Earl and Summerset, near the Ralphs grocery, the Dog Park features a highly dangerous electrified fence and is host to regular meetings of Hooded Figures. Its walls are smooth, obsidian, and featureless, but were revealed in Poetry Week to contain a gate, which opened to admit a few curious citizens, before disappearing again. Inside, there is a tall black obelisk with a plaque containing a poem written in 1954 by former Night Vale mayor Danielle Dubois.
Plot Involvement
In PTA Meeting, the prehistoric creature's mangled body is found just outside the Dog Park, completely torn apart, before it is thrown back into the vortex.
Typing it into an internet search is considered a thought crime; It is said to be the source of the Feral Dog Pack in episode 10, and where they are eventually returned to.
Cecil attempts to question one of the Hooded Figures that appear in his studio about the expansion on the Dog Park, but the only noise that comes from the figure is loud static. This is probably linked to an announcement from mayor Pamela Winchell in the episode The Drawbridge, claiming that there is "no digital, static-y hum coming from the Dog Park". She continues to make a plea stating that it could not possibly be a coded message from a "menacing and unearthly voice" urging citizens to bring precious metals and toddlers to the Dog Park.
Intern Dana was also trapped inside the Dog Park for months, almost starving in the process. She walked along the park's black walls for weeks and, although she noted that the Dog Park appears to take up no more than a city block from the outside, she could no longer see any of the familiar landmarks from her position. Dana eventually found her way out of the Dog Park when she found a strange door, unattached to any surface, and went through it.
The Man in the Tan Jacket currently occupies the Dog Park, although it's uncertain whether or not he is able to leave.