Last October, if you were out walking your dog along the Northaven Trail somewhere between US-75 and St. Judes, you didn't find joggers and cyclists. You found 400 sheep and goats, working their way west in a slow, deliberate wave, trailed by border collies and a small crew of professional herders. One of the animals wore a GPS tracker so residents could follow the herd's progress online in real time, the way you'd track a food delivery. Neighbors showed up with folding chairs. Kids got photos. Someone on Nextdoor called it "a neighborhood gem," which is an odd thing to say about livestock on a paved bike path, until you understand what the Northaven Trail actually is.
The Northaven Trail follows an Oncor power line easement paved by the city, and volunteers with Friends of Northaven Trail help shape its community programming. The goats are the most visible example, but they're not the only one.
How the City and Neighbors Shape the Northaven Trail
The Dallas Parks and Recreation Department owns and maintains the Northaven Trail's basic infrastructure, the pavement, the drainage, the standard upkeep any city trail gets. Friends of Northaven Trail, an all-volunteer nonprofit, supplements the city's basic maintenance with gardens, events and seasonal projects. As the Dallas Observer reported after last fall's goat grazing, the trail itself was completed in 2023 as a nine-mile paved corridor running between Central Expressway and Denton Drive.
The city handles basic upkeep, while volunteers raise money and do additional projects such as planting wildflowers. Together, these efforts contribute to the experience of walking this trail.
Why There Were 400 Sheep and Goats on a Paved Bike Path
The grazing project started small. Friends of Northaven Trail board member Will Dawson told the Dallas Observer that the original plan was modest: "What started out with the idea to hire 15-20 animals has now blossomed into a herd of 400." The concept came out of a conversation with the Dallas Parks Department about an alternative to mowing and herbicide for the trail's no-mow wildflower zones, using grazing animals to break down thatch, aerate the soil with their hooves, and prepare the ground for native reseeding instead.
The pilot, branded Northaven TAILS, put a herd of Dorper and Katahdin sheep alongside Spanish, Boer, and Alpine goats across 30 of the trail's 50 pollinator zones, moving roughly 1.5 to 6 acres a day. Friends of Northaven Trail raised close to $16,476 to cover the cost, according to WFAA, and posted updates warning that the animals were "on their own schedule," since a 5 to 7 day timeline was always an estimate rather than a promise.
It worked well enough that the group is bringing the herd back. The current Friends of Northaven Trail site notes that the animals are returning again this fall, with sponsorships available for individual grazing zones. If you live near the trail and haven't seen a goat yet, you likely will before the year is out.
Speaking about Rhythm & Blooms, the group's annual fundraiser, Dorothy Buechel, a Friends of Northaven Trail board member, told People Newspapers: "This event is getting bigger every year. It's a great indication that the community is really behind our goal of making the trail a great place for friends and family to come out and be in nature, ride their bikes, walk their dogs, and enjoy the beautiful gardens."
The Garden Club Members Who Adopted a Strip of Right-of-Way
The goats get the headlines, but they're grazing zones that other volunteers already spent years reclaiming. The Founders Garden Club of Dallas, a Garden Club of America affiliate founded in 1938, began working a small, neglected patch of the trail just west of Royalshire Drive back in 2022, starting with what the club itself calls a "weed wrangle" to clear invasive growth before replanting with native perennials and Texas grasses, according to the Garden Club of America's civic project page. The goal, stated plainly, is to support Monarch butterflies during their annual migration and to keep the garden going with ongoing replanting as needed.
That single garden is now folded into something larger. Friends of Northaven Trail's own Monarch Way project restores broader stretches of underutilized ground along the corridor with native milkweed and wildflowers, timed to the monarchs' spring and fall migrations through North Texas. Founders Garden Club still shows up for the maintenance work directly, including a Spring Conservation Cleanup workday held March 11, 2026, between Royalshire and West Ricks Circle.
Walk that stretch on any given weekend and you're passing through several years of accumulated, unpaid labor by people who don't live on that block but decided the block deserved better anyway.
A Calendar Written by Neighbors
The events calendar tells the same story from a different angle. Volunteers produce, sponsor and staff these events, and the calendar continues to grow.
- Rhythm & Blooms, the group's annual fundraiser, held its third edition on April 11, 2026, according to People Newspapers, with early bird pricing and a growing turnout each year.
- Movie Night on the Trail has run with dessert sponsorship from Corner Bakery on Preston/Forest and Shake Shack on Preston/Royal, a small detail that only makes sense if you already know which strip centers anchor which end of the corridor.
- Walk and Eat with a Doc runs monthly, pairing a trail walk with a local physician, according to the group's own community updates.
- North Texas Giving Day functions as the organization's largest single fundraising push of the year, directing every dollar back into trail plantings, amenities, and events.
None of these require a special occasion to attend. They require knowing they exist, which mostly means knowing someone who already walks the trail.
What This Means If You Walk Here Regularly
Friends of Northaven Trail estimates more than 30,000 people use the corridor every month. Alongside the city-maintained infrastructure, volunteers help shape the trail through gardens, goat grazing, movie nights and fundraisers. Neighbors contribute by bringing shovels, donating to a grazing sponsorship, or bringing a picnic blanket to watch Paddington 2 projected against the dark.
That's the part worth sitting with if you already live along this stretch of North Dallas. The trail isn't a fixed amenity you either have or don't. It's closer to a shared project that happens to run past your house, one that changes shape depending on who's paying attention that year. Right now, that means goats are coming back this fall, a garden club is still tending its corner near Royalshire, and someone is already planning next spring's cleanup day.
If you're the kind of neighbor who wants to know when the herd arrives, Friends of Northaven Trail posts updates on its site as the schedule firms up.
None of this changes anyone's plans to buy or sell, and that's rather the point. It's the kind of detail you only pick up by paying attention to a neighborhood over years, not weeks, which happens to be how Donna Hartley has spent her 15 years working North Dallas. If a conversation about this corridor, or any other pocket of Preston Hollow, Park Cities, Bluffview, or Lakewood, ever turns into a real estate question, she's easy to reach for a straightforward, no-pressure consultation.
