Alamogordo, NM Is Dog Town
To say that the city of Alamogordo in south central New Mexico is obsessed with dogs is, well, an understatement. I have never lived in any city that had so many citizens with at least one dog. Drive down any street in Alamogordo and you’ll see a dog in every other car. Drive down any street in Alamogordo and you’ll see a dog in just about every yard. Drive down any street in Alamogordo and you’ll see someone walking a dog or two or three. Even the homeless that sometimes perch on the street corners have dogs. Bicyclists have dogs in their baskets. People talk about their dogs while standing in line at the Post Office. I’ve even seen people wheeling their dogs around in carts at a home improvement store. This city loves dogs.
Alamogordo loves its dogs so much it has a "dog wash." Located at 2800 E. 10th Street, the A.’ r M. facility charges $6.00 for 10 minutes You take your pooch in, lather him up, rinse him off, and head for the home improvement store. Or, after his bath and he smells all nice, you can take him to the Bark Park, a fenced dog park located across from the baseball fields on North Florida Avenue, where he can perhaps meet another nice smelling dog. But if the dog park isn’t your dog’s thing, there are several parks throughout the city to strut your beloved mutt not to mention miles and miles of sidewalks leading from here to there. One particular park called the Desert Foothills Park located at the east end of East 1st Street caters to nature loving dogs and offers a paved hiking trail that skirts the west side of the scenic Sacramento Mountains. If your dog is a hard core hiker, you can take him to Alamo Canyon located off the southern end of Scenic Drive where a rocky trail ascends the canyon in to the Lincoln National Forest and will surely wear your dog out. Or you can take him to, yes this is the name of the canyon, Dog Canyon located 13 miles south of the city off of US 54 at the end of Otero County Road A16 and managed by the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park.
If your dog gets sick or injured, there are at least 10 veterinarians in the city. Dog gone wild? Take him to K-9 Kingdom Agility and Obedience located at 1700 Indian Wells Road for some training. Hungry dog? There are numerous places in the city to pick up his food including PetSense on North White Sands Boulevard, Alamo Feed And Supply on Eudora, and Sanders And Danley Feed Store on North Florida Avenue. Fed your dog too well and now you don’t want or have time to pick up your dog’s droppings in your backyard? Riley’s Pooper Scooper Service will pick up and remove that problem for a small fee. No matter what the canine need, Alamogordo’s got it covered.
But sometimes, since there are so many dogs in Alamogordo, they find themselves homeless. Fortunately, Animal Village NM, a nonprofit no kill animal shelter is there to help. Located at 7246 Highway 54-70, the shelter houses 200 dogs until adopted in to their forever homes. They even have a 7-acre desert landscaped nature dog walking trail at the facility.
A dog lover myself, I don’t mind all of these dogs even with the perpetual distant barking lingering on the wind or the constant yelping outside my bedroom window from the two new puppies next door. I believe you can tell a lot about a person by how he treats a dog and judging by how many dogs are in Alamogordo, I believe you can tell a lot about the heart of the city. Alamogordo is a town for dogs. Better yet Alamogordo is dog town.
