Melissa Garner’s best friend is a little hyper. In the span of an hour, he enters a jumping contest, steals a tennis ball and pounces on a peer. His friends have names like Hershey, Gertie and Pluto.

And these are the names that Garner recalls when she goes to the Evanston/

Skokie Dog Park on Main Street.

“It’s really funny because you get to meet other dog owners but you forget the owners’ names and remember the dogs’ names,” Garner said.

On any given Sunday, the canine howling emanating from the Dog Park, a trampled field surrounded by chain-link fence, begs the question: “Who let the dogs out?”

“It’s like taking toddlers to a playgroup,” Garner said. “(The dogs) look at each other like they want to play, and when you take them off their leashes, they learn to be friendlier than if they were just around people all the time.”

According to dog owners like Paul Haskin, the Dog Park is an ugly mutt when compared with its pedigree cousin, the Dog Beach, whose members pay $40 a year for the privilege of entering the park between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

“It’s more of a yuppie crowd at Dog Beach, and we sometimes meet up at Tommy Nevin’s since we all live in the area,” Haskin said.

Dogs and owners alike yelp their thanks for the recently expanded Dog Beach and plans to create a new “fancy” dog park, and Evanston Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th) takes credit as the city’s dog activist.

“We have a responsibility to provide for every member of each family, and dogs are family members,” Bernstein said.