Let your Dog run free in Vienna

The city of Vienna has much to offer, even for dogs and their owners. In all districts of Vienna are so called »Hundezonen« (Literally: »Area for Dogs«). If you stay for a vacation or a weekend trip in Vienna and want to be accompanied by your dog, you should know these areas. Normally it is obvious and a rule to have your dog on the leashes or even walk with your dog, when he wears a muzzle. But in the specific dog areas in Vienna you can let him run freely.

These dog areas are marked with a green sign and a black dog inside the green sign. Most of these areas are fenced, but not all of them. For example there is a huge dog area in the second disctrict in the forest of the Vienna Prater. There is no fence around the dog area, but if you go with your dog outside this area, you have to follow the normal rules again.

Dog Areas to let him Run Free in every District

There are dog areas such as the one on the picture above, which is in the first district of Vienna, in each district. Minimum dog areas per district is two, but the amount raises up to 16 in larger districts of Vienna. The areas are of different size. Some of these dog areas are only small and let you just walk a little around with your dog. Other dog areas are surprisingly large. There your dog can enjoy running freely.

One of these dog areas of Vienna in the first district is on the picture above. As you can see it is a relatively large area, but far away from the really large dog areas. Even there in this dog area in the first district, so really close to the historic center of Vienna, you can let your dog run freely. This area is located on the north-east side of the district next to the Danube Channel. It is just a five minutes walk from the Schwedenplatz to the north-western direction upstream along the Danube Channel.

All in all there are about 150 such dog areas in different sizes in Vienna. All of them added together have a little more than a million of square meters in size. This is what Vienna does for the about 55000 dogs which are registred in Vienna. And of course there are more, because visitors and tourists are bringing their own dogs for the weekend vacation in Vienna too.

Water Dispensers are disabled in Winter

Most of the dog areas have water dispensers for the dogs. But they are only on in spring, summer and autumn. They are turned off in winter. So if you go there with your dog during the winter you should bring a small bowl and a little bottle of water for your fourlegged best friend. One of these water dispensers can be seen on the second picture here.

Sorry, but not for Picnic

You might wonder, but it is true. Even if the rule to take the dog poop away with a poop bag also in the dog areas, it is still a little disgusting. But every year you can see mainly tourists coming to the dog areas for picnic. This is not the idea of a dog area and to be honest, it is really disgusting sitting on the ground there and having picnic. No only for the hygenical needs of the people. It is also annoying for the dog owners to keep their dogs away from salted and spiced foods which is lost there by the people doing picnic. 

There is a map of dog areas by the city of Vienna. This map is generated by Open Government Data. There you can see all the dog areas which are in Vienna and you can also see all the dispensers for poop bags in the city of Vienna. The dog areas are the ones with the green logo, this looks a little like the sign you will also see on the fence or on the border of the dog area.

Link: Citymap for Dog Owners