Winter Dog Days at Governors Island

Saturdays & Sundays

Dogs are allowed on Gov­er­nors Island every Sat­ur­day and Sun­day through April 30. This sea­son­al pro­gram allows dogs, along with their human coun­ter­parts, to enjoy the Island’s incred­i­ble 172-acres, com­plete with car-free path­ways, open fields and incred­i­ble views — along with a fenced-in dog park locat­ed behind Liggett Ter­race and open Sat­ur­days and Sun­days this win­ter. Unlike any­where else in the city, Gov­er­nors Island offers crowd-free areas for leashed dogs and their humans to enjoy the sights of New York Har­bor, with plen­ty of room to explore.

Dog Days Rules: 

• Dogs are only allowed on Gov­er­nors Island on Sat­ur­days and Sun­days dur­ing this win­ter sea­son pro­gram. In accor­dance with NY State law, only ser­vice dogs are allowed on Gov­er­nors Island oth­er days and times.
• Dogs must remain on a leash, includ­ing while on Trust for Gov­er­nors Island oper­at­ed ferries.
• Dogs and their own­ers must ride in one of the out­door sec­tions of the ferry.
• No extra tick­ets or reser­va­tions are required for dogs on Trust for Gov­er­nors Island oper­at­ed ferries.
• Dogs are allowed to come over to Gov­er­nors Island up until 3pm on Sat­ur­days. Dogs that arrive before 3pm may remain on the Island until it clos­es. Dogs will not be allowed on Trust-oper­at­ed Gov­er­nors Island fer­ries after 3pm.
• Dogs are cur­rent­ly not allowed in indoor spaces on Gov­er­nors Island.
• Dogs are only allowed off-leash in the des­ig­nat­ed dog park between Col­lec­tive Retreats and Liggett Ter­race. All dogs and their humans must adhere to the post­ed dog park rules (click here to view). 
• Dogs must keep out of land­scaped and plant­ed areas.
• You must pick up after your dog and place all dog waste in the land­fill bins locat­ed around the Island — we’ll have bags avail­able, but please bring your own just in case.

FOR NYC FER­RY RID­ERS: Only ser­vice ani­mals are allowed on ves­sels oper­at­ed by NYC Fer­ry. Dogs, with the excep­tion of trained ser­vice ani­mals as defined by the Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties Act, are not per­mit­ted on NYC Fer­ry ves­sels unless they are in a pet car­ri­er and/​or muzzled. 

While this will mark the first time Gov­er­nors Island is open to the gen­er­al dog pop­u­la­tion of New York City, a spe­cial crew of five work­ing dogs have been run­ning around the Island for six years. The Gov­er­nors Island work­ing dogs are trained to chase the geese off the Island with­out harm­ing them, pre­sent­ing a sus­tain­able and effec­tive solu­tion to goose con­trol. The team — Max, Chip, Quinn, Leader and Aspen — can­not wait to wel­come the dogs of NYC to the Island.