How to Get a Town of Huntington Dog Run Permit (Deposit Rd)
Lillian Ruff Pet Spa
The Town of Huntington runs an off-leash dog park at the Animal Shelter on Deposit Road in East Northport. You need a permit to use it, the permit is free, and collecting it takes one visit.
Free permit, Huntington residents only. Bring your dog license, a current rabies record and proof of spay or neuter to the shelter office at 106 Deposit Road, East Northport. One visit and you are done.
What follows is pure logistics: what the permit costs, what to bring, where you collect it, and what the rules are once you are there. No sales pitch until the very end.
What it costs: nothing
There is no fee for the Town of Huntington dog run permit. What it costs you is a trip to the shelter office and a bit of paperwork you probably already have in a drawer.
The one hard gate is residency. The permit is for Town of Huntington residents. That is a wider net than people assume — the Town includes East Northport, Northport, Greenlawn, Centerport, Elwood, Dix Hills, Melville, Huntington and Huntington Station, Halesite, Cold Spring Harbor, West Hills, and parts of Commack and Fort Salonga. If you are on the Huntington side of Townline Road in Commack, you are in. If you are in Kings Park or Smithtown, you are not.
What to bring
Three documents. Pull them together before you drive over, because a second trip for a missing rabies certificate is the most annoying possible use of a Saturday morning.
Requirements can be updated by the Town, so if you are driving any distance it is worth a quick call to the shelter office to confirm what they want to see on the day. Nothing here replaces what the Town itself tells you.
Where you collect it
The permit is issued at the Town Animal Shelter office, which sits past the dog park itself. So you will drive in, go by the run, and keep going to the office. The Town Cat Shelter is on the same site, managed by Little Shelter Animal Rescue of Huntington — Suffolk County's first humane society, founded in 1927.
We groom in the same hamlet — same ZIP code, in fact, 11731, at 16 Laurel Road. That is the whole reason we know the place exists and can write it down for you.
One thing to plan around: the office hours for collecting the permit are not necessarily the same as the hours of the run itself, which closes at 4pm at weekends. If you are making a special trip, call ahead rather than guessing.
Check your paperwork
License current, rabies in date, spay or neuter documented. All three, together, in one folder.
Go to the shelter office
106 Deposit Road. Drive past the dog run — the office is beyond it.
Collect the permit
No fee. Keep it with you when you use the run.
Go early the first time
A quiet weekday morning is a kinder first visit than a packed Saturday, especially for a dog who has not done off-leash play in a group before.
The rules, in one place
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Hours | Monday to Friday 8am–6pm; Saturday and Sunday 9am–4pm |
| Permit | Required, free, Town of Huntington residents |
| Minimum age | Four months |
| Dogs per visit | Two, maximum |
| Vaccination | Rabies must be current |
| Altered | Dogs must be spayed or neutered |
| On site | Roughly two-thirds of an acre, waste stations, a shade and rain pavilion, running water |
The four-month minimum is worth reading twice if you have a puppy. It is not arbitrary — a very young dog in a busy off-leash space can pick up a bad experience it keeps for years. There is no rush.
Off the dog run, Huntington's leash rule is six feet or shorter, and dogs are prohibited from all town beaches except paved areas and boardwalks under Town Code §159-20(D). Do not assume a quiet stretch of sand is fine because nobody is watching.
If the run is not your dog's thing
Plenty of dogs do not enjoy group off-leash play, and that is a normal preference, not a training failure. Dogs are allowed on leash in most of the Town's 140-plus parks. Named on-leash walking options in the Town include Jerome Ambro Memorial Wetlands Preserve on Seaside Court in Northport, Frazer Drive Park in Greenlawn, Phragmites Park on Fort Salonga Road in Centerport, the upper paved path at Sunshine Acres Park on Town Line Road in Commack, and the Dix Hills Park Woodland Trail on Veterans Memorial Highway. Northport Village Park at the foot of Main Street permits on-leash dogs and has paved paths, benches and restrooms.
West Hills County Park has a dog park too, with separate sections for large and small dogs, but that is Suffolk County rather than the Town — a county green key permit and a fee are reported as being required, so check before you go. Worth knowing in the other direction as well: Caleb Smith State Park Preserve in Smithtown bans pets outright, and at Sunken Meadow leashed dogs are limited to the undeveloped eastern portion, nowhere near the beach or boardwalk.
What a morning at the run leaves in a coat
This is the part we actually have standing to talk about. A good hour at Deposit Road is dirt, saliva, other dogs' saliva, dust worked down into the undercoat, and friction in all the places friction causes problems.
Handle it at home
- Rinse and towel a muddy dog, then let the coat dry fully before brushing
- Brush right down to skin behind the ears, in the armpits and between the back legs — the three places play-wrestling felts a coat
- Check between the pads for packed grit and grass seed
- Run your hands over the whole dog and do a tick check, every single time
Worth a groomer
- Mats you cannot slide a comb under — pulling at those hurts, and a dog remembers
- A doodle or other curly coat after repeated wet-then-dry days
- Nails clicking on pavement, which changes how a dog loads its feet
- Anything that looks like a hot spot, a wound or a skin reaction — that is a vet call, not a grooming call
The mat never forms on top of the coat, where you brush. It forms underneath, where you stopped.
The tick point is not a scare tactic. New York State health surveillance splits deer tick seasons into nymphs from May to September and adults from October to December, and in Suffolk County in 2025, 26.6% of nymphs collected carried the bacterium that causes Lyme, rising to 52.8% of adults collected between October and December. Nymphs are the size of a poppy seed. Fingers find them; eyes often do not. Anything embedded, or any dog that seems off after a bite, goes to your vet — we spot ticks and tell you, we do not treat them.
Questions people actually ask
Does the permit cost anything?
No. It is free. You need to be a Town of Huntington resident and your dog needs to be licensed, spayed or neutered, and current on rabies.
Can I bring three dogs?
No — two dogs per visit is the limit. If you have a third, you are making two trips or bringing a second adult with a permit of their own.
My dog is fourteen weeks old. Can we go?
Not yet. The minimum age is four months. Use the time for leash walks and calm introductions instead; a first off-leash group experience lands better on a slightly older, more confident dog.
Do I need to book a groom after every dog park visit?
Genuinely, no. Most dog run mornings are a rinse, a full dry and a proper brush at home. Book when the coat has gone past what a comb can fix, when nails need doing, or when you are due for a regular groom anyway.
Can you groom my dog at Deposit Road, or on the way?
No — we are a salon, not a mobile service. We groom at 16 Laurel Road in East Northport, Tuesday to Saturday, 9 to 5. Grooming only at this location; daycare and boarding are at our Ronkonkoma salon, a short drive away.
What does a groom actually cost?
Prices are set by your dog's weight. A bath and brush runs from $35 to $120 and a full groom with a haircut runs from $70 to $155, smallest to largest. Every band is published on our booking page — of 18 Long Island salons audited from their own websites, only three publish any pricing at all.
Book the groom, then go play.
Pick your slot online, see the price for your dog's weight before you commit, and get a confirmation straight away.
See pricing & book ›16 Laurel Rd, East Northport, NY 11731 · Tue–Sat 9–5
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