While dog ownership has surged in the U.S., Park City, aka Bark City, and the Heber Valley have long been known for their inviting, dog-friendly culture. Locals and visiting pup parents savor time around town and outdoor adventures with their doggos all year long.
We’ll look at the many options, including where to hang out, events to attend, dog rescues, and how to get your canine friend ready for action. And how about those amazing dogs that assist ski patrol and search and rescue teams? We’ve got that covered as well.
Where to Go
From trails to coffee shops and parks, Park City and Heber Valley are fun, dog-friendly places to be with pups. Also, it’s an area that cares about matching people and pets through rescues and adoptions.
Curious about where to hang out with your pup? Located in the Park City Visitors Center, you can grab a fair trade, organic cup of joe at Hugo Coffee. Yes, furry friends are welcome inside the space, too. From May to November, every Wednesday afternoon from 3-6 p.m., Hugo Coffee hosts a Yappy Hour with free pup cups, treats from the Barking Cat, giveaways and good fun.
Or head to Salt Lake City for the community’s Yappy Hour series every other month at a different park from June to October. Dog treats, live music, food, beer, vendors and a designated off-leash zone with toys and tennis balls are among the highlights of the 6-9 p.m. event.
Want to move the legs? Head to one of the many dog-friendly parks in Park City. The perk? Each of these parks is also leash-free, so your dog can roam around. For starters, Run-a-Muk Dog Park offers two miles of trails that weave through 43 acres of fenced-in hillsides. Also fenced, Quinn’s Junction Dog Park at 600 Gillmor Way is open sunrise to sunset. At Trailside Dog Park, dog owners will find two separate fenced areas for small and large dogs. There’s a 1-mile-long trail for off-leash walks surrounded by grass, native shrubs, benches and shade shelters.
Additional dog parks include Willow Creek Dog Park, Trailside Dog Park and The Woods at Parley’s Lane. You also will find Valais Dog Park in Midway — a large, fenced dog park — and Heber City Dog Park with grass and fencing.
Dog-Oriented Events
Keep your eyes peeled for the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association’s annual Backcountry Bow Wow fundraiser that takes place every March and features avalanche rescue dog demonstrations and live music. The proceeds support dog and handler training for several local organizations including the Mountain Training Center and Wasatch Backcountry Rescue.
“Avalanche dogs add safety to the mountain; in the event of an avalanche, the dogs will help in recovery. Dogs must go through training and certifications, and it takes two to three years for a dog to become completely certified,” says Brett Jeppesen, snow safety specialist and dog coordinator at Park City Mountain Resort. Jeppesen also is the lead avalanche dog program coordinator for Wasatch Backcountry Rescue.
A dog handler for 14 years, he has worked with Eddy, his current patrol dog, for four years. Jeppesen was a professional dog trainer prior to ski patrolling and finds it rewarding to work with the dogs and support other patrollers and search and rescue volunteers who are involved with dog programs.
“Patrol or avalanche dogs are trained to quickly find victims in the event of an avalanche. They support in finding victims, especially in cases where the individual does not have Recco [a radar system] or a beacon,” he says. “Park City Mountain supports the largest avalanche dog program in the Wasatch and supports a total of 12 dogs. There are 10 resorts in Utah that support dog programs.”
For something completely different, the Soldier Hollow Classic Sheepdog Championships & Festival takes place in Midway over Memorial Day weekend. The inaugural event at Soldier Hollow was held in 2023, and now draws competitors from several countries and more than 15,000 spectators annually. The rolling hillsides, which were the location of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, provide a stunning vista for the event. In addition to sheepdog and duck herding, dog carting and agility competitions and demonstrations, children’s games, food, vendors, sheep shearing and more add to the fun for all ages.
Rescues and Therapy Canines
Launched in 2019, the Sugar Face Foundation is a Park City-founded nonprofit that adopts and fosters high-risk dogs from local shelters. Others exist, too, including Peoa-based Nuzzles & Co and Mountain Mamas Pyrs & Pups in Midway.
Located in Midway, Rocky Mountain Therapy Dogs provides customized therapy, education and outreach programs that are free for entities such as schools, nursing homes, community centers and healthcare offices.
Training for Adventures
Over the past few years, Park City-based dog trainer Molly Avrin, who founded Pete’s Adventure Pack in 2021, has seen a shift in client outreach. Rather than seeking lessons for urban dog walks, people are eager to learn how to explore with their furry besties from mountain biking and horseback riding to backcountry skiing and stand-up paddleboarding.
In 2007, when Avrin was studying at the University of Alabama, she started volunteering at a local dog shelter after she adopted her first dog, Pete. “A lot of dogs were super social, happy and great dogs, but they were being surrendered for basic behavioral issues that I felt were solvable with basic training and someone setting them up for success,” says Avrin.
To help save the lives of those vulnerable dogs, Avrin taught herself how to train canines through literature and videos, so that she could foster and teach them. She fostered more than 100 dogs over the next 13 years, completed sanctioned dog training programs in 2018, and has since been mentored by Cheri Lucas, an internationally recognized canine behavior specialist based in California.
“People call and say, ‘I literally got a Blue Heeler because I want to go mountain biking, but he bites my bike tires,’” says Avrin, who specializes in relationship-based dog training for outdoor fun. Imagine team training for a dog owner and their dog that elevates the fulfillment of a dog breed’s basic needs.
For instance, Avrin and her husband have six dogs, five of which are part husky, a breed with high fulfillment needs. A lifestyle match is important for the dog and owner. “If you wake up every morning and exercise first thing — whether it’s mountain biking or backcountry or Nordic skiing — and they get their exercise in, huskies are easy dogs if they’re fulfilled and exercised properly,” explains Avrin.
So, perhaps it’s no surprise that Pete’s Adventure Pack has seen a consistent 20% growth year-over-year since the business launched. Nearly all of these clients are millennials ranging from age 20 to mid-40s.
Instruction, Boarding and More
At Park City’s Fetch, book Fetch Academy for training and hour-long hikes in groups of up to six pups. Fetch also offers play dates, overnight boarding, grooming, private play areas for senior dogs and puppies, and treadmill training. Treadmill training is exactly what it sounds like: letting your dog run on a treadmill — the same one that you would run on at your local gym.
Rocky Mountain K9 also offers boarding, training, grooming, day care and even a self-service dog wash facility. There are several locations including Park City, Ogden and Grantsville. The organization helped with displaced dogs from the January 2025 wildfires that impacted California and has some dogs available for adoption.
Pete’s Adventure Pack offers a range of unique services including one-on-one or full-day training sessions and Adventure Camp, a weekly program where dogs are dropped off one day per week for outdoor adventures with other dogs and training exercises that help fine-tune their skills. In fall and spring, the program typically includes mountain biking while winter season activities range from hiking and snowshoeing to dogsledding and backcountry skiing.
In December, Avrin launched the Adventure Dog Channel, a virtual training membership with a library of more than 200 short instructional video lessons from leash work to stand-up paddleboarding with your dog, dog treadmills and how to bring your dog home. In the pipeline, Avrin is filming a series of 40 shorts videos for a puppy-specific course.
Mountain Bike Dog Camp
In September 2024, Avrin co-launched the first-ever Paws & Pedals Mountain Bike Clinic in partnership with Park City-based professional mountain bike coach Erica Tingey. “Day one of the inaugural mountain bike skills and dog training clinic was a super success. The humans and dogs started the day with various levels of experience and learned so much individually. We worked with each of them to get the coaching they needed to move to their next skill level,” shares Tingey in her summary of the course on Instagram.
The two-day camp included a six-hour bike session for the dog owners taught by Tingey. The workshop included guidance on body positioning while riding, safe and effective braking technique, and corners and obstacles. Meanwhile, Arvin taught the dogs how to safely run alongside a bike. The lessons included how to stay in a safe position next to the seat post, how to yield to others on the trail, recall, passing, how to stop and go, and general etiquette.
On the second day, mountain bikers were coached alongside their dogs. As pre-coursework, the duo offered a 60-minute, one-on-one mountain bike session with Tingey and a 60-minute, one-on-one training for the dog and owner taught on trails by Avrin. The inaugural camp was so popular that Tingey and Avrin held two camps this spring.
Trail Dogs: Solutions for Common Behavior Issues
Lacks Good Recall: Start with leash training on a 30-foot leash. “You say their name and reel them in like a fish, guiding them to you and showing them exactly what you want them to do,” recommends dog trainer Molly Avrin, who founded Pete’s Adventure Pack in Park City. Then, reward your dog with food or physical affection like a big, calming chest rub.
Reactivity: “People often ask, ‘Why is my dog barking at stuff? It’s just another dog.’ The problem comes from that dog having insecurities, and maybe it wasn’t socialized properly. What they’re really needing in that moment is for you to help them out,” says Avrin, who suggests directing them to a safe spot previously taught, such as next to your hip.
Biting Bike Tires: Avoid riding without first training your dog. To curb the tire biting issue, Avrin advises slowing things down and going back to the basics. “Get off your bike, walk your bike, put your dog on a leash and work through it in a really low-key setting. Then, slowly build back up to actually going back on the trail.”
Soon, Avrin plans to launch free community classes to cover basic dog etiquette like recall. “If you don’t have money for training but you want one group class to learn some stuff, I’ve got you. It would make everybody so much better and happier out on the trails if our dogs and their people know basic etiquette,” she emphasizes.
