Old Dogs Get Their Own Senior Center

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (March 18) - There's now a playground for old dogs with a little less wiggle in their wag. Mature pooches uninterested in learning new tricks now have their own hangout, a gerontologic dog park, to socialize.

The San Clemente Dog Park opened Wednesday, across the street from a frenetic canine playground for the young and restless.

The senior side opened six months after the main bark park. The city spent $275,000 on the entire complex and the San Clemente Dog Lovers organization plans to sell advertising banners that will hang on the perimeter chain-link fence to finance the park's maintenance.

For some 3,000 licensed dogs in the city, the park is the only chunk of city property that doesn't require a leash. But the older dogs don't seem too interested in any untethered running and roughhousing.

Fifteen-year-old Taz - that's 105 in dog years - is a mixed breed whose hip was broken in 10 places in a car accident about five years ago. She's been to the main dog park, but she stayed to the side, away from the other dogs.

''She can't see very well and she can't hear very well,'' Taz master Bill Thomas said. She probably won't be any more active in the senior park, but at least she won't have to worry about being knocked over by a rambunctious Rottweiler, Thomas said.

''Dogs are like kids. They like to roughhouse, but ask an 80-year-old if he likes to roughhouse. He may want to, but it's not the same anymore,'' said Gregg Lipanovich, who launched the San Clemente Dog Lovers campaign for senior canines.