Imagine living in a neighborhood where there’s a beautiful park fenced in by the local elementary school.

If the school unlocked the park gates when school was closed so that anyone in the neighborhood could use it, would you bring your dog with you?

In this story, that’s exactly what happens, and a lot of people do choose to bring their dogs. That’s a big problem for the school, but they come up with an easy solution.

Keep reading for all the details.

Want your dogs to be off-leash in the park? It would be a shame if they escape!

Some back story: I live beside a four quadrant park, with cross streets going through. So each quadrant is one block by one block in size.

One of those quadrant’s is fenced in and may or may not be owned by the local school district. There were some shady deals and it’s not clear if they ever legally owned the quadrant.

I won’t go into the details of that, but the neighborhood has been fighting for access to the park for as long as I can remember.

The school decided to compromise.

Recently, that quadrant was completely renovated using public funds.

Since it is used during the school day as an area for the kids, it has decent security. The only way in and out is through 4 doors at each corner of the quadrant.

The deal struck with the community is that during non-school hours (M-F after 3pm, Saturday and Sunday) the quadrant would be open to the public and those doors would be unlocked.

But it wasn’t meant to be a dog park.

Shortly after the park opened, people (myself included – this isn’t AITAH. I know I shouldn’t have. This is a self-deprecating post) began letting their dogs run in this park. It was perfect, since it was completely fenced in.

When others started complaining to the city, my wife and I stopped letting our dog in there but others kept using it.

The city couldn’t just lock it up and deprive everyone access, but how to prevent unleashed dogs?

The school came up with an easy way to solve the problem.

In my opinion, they came up with the most simple yet genius solution.

Rather than lock all the doors to the park, they padlocked them open during non-school hours.

Now, if you come in to let your dog run, there are four gaping escapes into a relatively high-traffic area that your dog could run through.

I still see a few very well trained dogs running around in there, but most people are not going to risk it anymore.

That was clever! Really, I can completely understand why a school would not want dogs running around their playground. The solution was easy and effective.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

It really was a smart way to handle the situation.

This sounds annoying for the other dog owners.

This dog owner is disappointed.

Another person feels bad for the dogs.

The people who work at that school definitely proved that they are smart!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.