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San Francisco Chronicle​

Disneyland for dogs? I found an incredible surprise behind this East Bay Costco

I brought my bike to Point Isabel Regional Shoreline last Friday morning. I might as well have arrived riding a house cat. After pedaling for miles to the Richmond park on a mission of discovery, I was surrounded by a great many dogs and an excessive number of 'no bikes allowed' signs. Point Isabel is the biggest open space for pups that I've ever seen. I had left my own dog behind in Alameda. 'This has to be the world's most beautiful off leash dog park,' Point Isabel regular AJ Benham told me, as her German shepherd Schatzie seemed to nod along. 'People call it Disneyland for dogs.' My mistake was understandable. Point Isabel stretches out into the bay where Interstate 80 and Interstate 580 split, with the park mostly invisible behind the unappealing triumvirate of a Costco, U.S. Postal Service warehouse and wastewater treatment plant. Peering out a car window at 65 miles per hour, it looks like industry has declared victory over the shoreline. But there's definitely a park back there; more than 50 acres that have been clawed back by East Bay Regional Park District leaders and a devoted group of pup-loving locals. There are rolling hills, 270-degree waterfront views, trees for shade, marshland for birds, a kayak launch and more happy dogs per acre than anywhere else in the region. 'When I come to Point Isabel, I feel like I'm walking on history,' said Sam Goldsmith, with his German pinscher Dolma. 'There were a lot of human interactions to create what we have. And that feels so special.' Point Isabel was named in the mid-1800s, when Don Victor Castro filled the El Cerrito hills with cattle and named the point after his daughter Isabella. For most of the next 100 years, the beautiful peninsula was abused. It was a haven for illegal prizefights, then home to a dynamite factory. The Chronicle in 1907 reported a nitroglycerin explosion in a warehouse killed a man and broke windows a half mile away, launching 'a greater portion of the 30x30 structure … into the bay.' More recently, Point Isabel was a place where people dumped things. From 1930 to 1968 ceramics factory TEPCO in El Cerrito hauled broken plates and cups to the southern beach. Fifty years later, the shore remains covered with shattered place settings, mostly in colorful shards, which are remarkably glossy after generations on the rocks. More sinister things have been stashed there as well. More than a few dead bodies turned up on Point Isabel's shores. The northern waterfront is still called Battery Point by locals, for the car batteries that used to be jettisoned in piles. But potential remained. During the parks boom of the 1970s, the East Bay Regional Parks District cut a deal with the U.S. Post Office, which cleaned the space and leased 21 acres of shoreline for public use. Locals in 1985 formed the Point Isabel Dog Owners and Friends (PIDO), which fought for a leash-optional space and lobbied to expand the park, while paying for dog excrement bags and organizing volunteer weed-pullings and cleanups. (Point Isabel is technically an open space that affords off-leash privileges, not a dog park.) Visit in 2025, and the park is a triumph of creative land use and community. Point Isabel has its own quarterly newspaper, the PIDO Pointer; an onsite dog groomer, Mudpuppy's Tub and Scrub; and dog-themed coffee shop, the Sit & Stay Cafe. There's no point where the shore is farther than a quarter mile from a warehouse, parking lot or sign for $1.50 Costco hot dogs. (From an aerial view, the park looks like the fringe around an industrial postage stamp.) But berms around the perimeter effectively hide the concrete jungle, an optical illusion that won the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a 1977 national merit award. Sixty trees have been planted, with about as many benches and picnic tables, some with plaques dedicated to dog lovers. Benches on a ridge have stellar western views of Mount Tamalpais, the Golden Gate Bridge, Point Richmond and an up-close look at Brooks Island Regional Preserve. Days after the bike miscalculation, I'm sitting at a picnic table with my dog Ripley, a white poodle/terrier mix rescued from a hoarder house, and three PIDO ('it rhymes with 'Fido'') board members: Benham, Goldsmith and president Lew Jacobson. PIDO members say their mission is to post and enforce rules, so leashes can remain optional. 'We don't have many ambitions,' Goldsmith said. 'We just want to walk our dogs in the park and have fun.' But East Bay dog lovers are not to be trifled with. When Richmond City Councilman David MacDiarmid proposed lifting the off-leash rules in 1987, he claimed a bag of dog feces arrived in the mail. (PIDO was not accused or implicated.) 'The council in our brave fashion looked at 80 yelling people and reversed position,' MacDiarmid told the Chronicle in 1990. 'People up for election were running for cover.' Stories by current board members sound less revolutionary, and more like chapters from 'A Dog's Purpose.' Benham discovered the park during a Costco trip 30 years ago, and came for years to enjoy the good boys and girls before she rescued one of her own. Jacobson says many regulars visit daily to walk, laugh and mourn together. Some continue after their dogs pass, just for the social interaction. There's so much space in Point Isabel, and so few points of potential escape, that I let Ripley off leash for the first time. She forges the path, peering back with an 'is this really happening?' look to see if I'm keeping up. An hour into my visit, I no longer notice the warehouses. I'm just thinking about the wonderful views, and wherever my dog decides to go next.