Below is the sign that the City of St. Thomas installed in early October, 2010.  For people not familiar with rules already in place at existing dog parks, the rules on this sign may seem over the top.  We encourage you to check out some of the information available to see that some parks actually ban small children altogether, and others ban children under 10 years of age.

And this is reprinted from the front page:

There continue to be incidents with small children in the park which is mainly due to a lack of understanding of the purpose of an off leash dog park.  The Lions Club Dog Park is a park for dogs, hence the name.  A children’s playground is for children and most parents would find it unacceptable if dogs were running wild in a designated kids playground.  There is ample information on this, here is one example from About.com:  “There are many good reasons to keep children out of off-leash dog parks, and no good reasons to bring them in. The possibilities for accidents are staggering.”  And from Suite.101:  “Your child should never be allowed to run, scream, chase dogs or even approach them unless given specific permission from the owner.

More info is on the St. Thomas Dog Blog — Whose park is it anyway? (Part 1 – Kids) and (Part 2 – Grownups).