Lakewood Off-Leash Dog Area — Attraction in Wauconda

Another wonderful Lake County Forest Preserve Dog Park! Tons of friendly dogs with a wide open grassy area to play. We loop around the grassy area with our pups and then walk through the wooded area with excellent paths and exploring for the dogs in the trees. Our dogs really love it here and whether your dog likes to run, play or explore this park has it all. One of our two dogs likes to swim - and this park doesn’t have water. But that’s ok. We have our favorite swimming park that’s a tad closer to us. Our second dog isn’t a fan of water one bit and is not to be trusted when it comes to ways to get around fencing - which is the downside for us to the parks with water we’ve been to. This park is fenced on all sides. And it’s dry (tho our water-loving monster did find one small trench of water today - in the entire park if there’s mud or water to jump in he will find it) while out regular park is full of mud puddles and trenches. We needed a break from cleaning him and the car. Lakewood, which is a little farther for us, turned out to be a perfect weekend solution. Our first visit was yesterday and we loved it so much we went back today.

If you go on a weekend be prepared to wait a little bit for a parking space. It’s...

Worst maintenance of any LCFP Park, yet you pay to go here! We've had passes here for a decade, but I've not seen any trail maintenance. However, the free LCFP parks have impeccably maintained aggregate trails. Welcome to the mud pit. There’s one place to water your dog—good luck finding it.

I'd appreciate Lake County buying less open land and developing use cases and access points to more of the land they own if they otherwise cannot develop it. For example, LCFP buys campgrounds and then removes all the campsites. They've done this at least thrice: On the Chain-O-Lakes, Round Lake, and Port Barrington.

Lake County doesn't own a non-group campground, yet Cook County operates five campgrounds, Kane County has four, and McHenry County has one. Buying up land with tax dollars and then removing that land's prior recreational uses punishes your constituents using their money to REMOVE access they previously enjoyed. What's the point, then? Don't buy land to decrease access to it. What bureaucratic morons came up...

This is a huge dog park with many areas for dogs to run free, all fenced in. Probably one of the biggest in the country, we are so lucky to have this lake county treasure. Lakewood is my favorite of all of the wonderful dog parks in this county. Expansive, open fields, paths thru the forest, nice covered shelter for a water/shade break, also restrooms (no indoor plumbing) . Been going here for years, rarely encountered unfriendly dogs (or people). Has been a happy place for all my beloved dogs, just brought my recently adopted rescue here for first time, so good to see her run free but glad our other dog was by her side to get them back to main area after they took off into the woods. Can be busy on weekends, permit needed, either lake county resident (mail in permit) or daily permit you can purchase there. It's just a wonderful place for dogs...