Dog Park

denise m

 Corvus, I am like you when it comes to dog parks. We go almost everyday. The park is large and open so there is lots of room to spread out. It's interesting to me how the dogs form their own little group of playmates and simply ignore the dogs that don't match their play style or personality. While there could be up to 15 -20 dogs at the park on a given day, Buddy only interacts with his regular 2 or 3 friends. Occasionally a 'problem' dog does shows up that simply is not a good fit. Most often the owner is open to the groups feedback and we all try to give them a chance and help them develop and improve their socialization. It's rewarding to see the owners learn how to properly train their unsocialized dogs and become a welcomed member of the park. Those who are unwilling or unable to do the work or take any advice are soon gone to greener pastures.

 

I find that one of the beauties of our supervised groups - so it appears that, at least at your park, there are some savvy owners willing to band together to educate.  That's a good thing!  Even at our groups, we notice that dogs do make their own friends (so disappointing when owners are friends and their dogs don't even give each other the time of day LOL).  I do bring Sequoyah occasionally, because she is able to teach dogs to respond to "stink eye" very well before anything else is necessary;-)  Sioux is the one who handles the extremely young puppies - in fifteen minutes every last one of them has learned to greet an adult with respect and you can barely even see how she did it.  Quanah is the one who gets tossed in with the adolescent or bully pups.  He nicely adjusts his play style, but they can't tell him what to do (typical hound LOL).   Even he has a "best friend" though (a Boston Terrier).

 I love the dog park for just watching and learning about dogs. Look at this that happened a couple of weeks ago:

Erik is normally a lot more forward than this, but this dog is extremely submissive and for some reason Erik mirrored him and was determined to greet from the lower position. They rolled around on the ground together angling for the lower position like it was some sort of competition to win.

 I have been watching Erik's greetings since and I do think he mirrors some dogs when he greets them. It's quite fun trying to find patterns in the behaviour I see. I find the more I watch other dogs the more confident I am making judgement calls on approaching dogs. That makes my trips out with the dogs a lot less stressful.

We also have some regulars our dogs are friends with, and we are friends with their owners. I like to think that every friend I make through my dogs is one more person that would probably go out of their way to stop and pick the boys up if they were ever to spot them out on the roads on their own. It is one of biggest fears that the boys could one day get out and get lost on the roads where it is just a matter of time before one of them gets hit by a vehicle. I am always polite and friendly to people when I'm with my dogs for this reason, regardless of how rude or exasperrating the other person may be.

tiffy

 Tootsie, my corgi, who is definitely a herder is known as "the fun police".

Haha!

I think they're great for some dogs, not all.  Max used to go all the time when he was much younger but as he got older it was obvious  that he had issues with certain dogs, and I had no way of knowing which ones or why.  For that reason I decided he's just not a good *dog park candidate*.

Joyce

I don't like dog parks. There is too much risk envolved. I 'd rather go to a beach or some trails or a regular park with no loose dogs. A friends house that has a yard to run free, are all better choices in  my opinion. I have been to too many pet stores, and pet friendly areas that people think they can just let there dogs do what ever they want. I've even had problems while running with my dog. I have had several dogs attack my dog. I'm very coutious because i have an American pit bull, most people don't like them. My dog and i were running one day , a boxer was out in his yard, his owner was too. We were in the middle of the street, it was a very "no" traffic street. I seen the dog so i moved to the other side of the street and  perceded to not notice him. well that lasted about 10 seconds he was running across the street toward us. he went right for my dogs neck. I picked my dog up of the ground so he couldn't get a hold my dog then wanted to protect himself(obviously) But beign a "pit bull" that was not a good option. so the lady came running over and couldn't gain control. I calmly yelled at her and she finally found some way to get him to listen long enough for me to  get the heck out of there. If i wasn't able to pick my dog up(76lb) what do you think would have happened? My dog is not very dog friendly anyways but, this is probably why. he is very obedient and unless  a loose, untrained dog came running over to bit us he would never be a problem. I 'm positive these are the kinds of people that go to dog parks. You should still have controll of you dog in a dog park fenced or not. I avoid other people and their dogs for that reason. Plus god knows how many diseases are at a dog park,even if they clean up after there dog. No way. I say no to dog parks.

On Doggyspace, a family wrote about taking their good sized dogs to the park....two even larger dogs attacked them and they both had to have surgery...the younger one will always have a limp and the older one lost a lot of skin and fur.....The owner of the other dogs didn't even notice their own dogs attacking my friends's dogs until all the screaming started...Blood all over, she said.

I do take the girls to a couple of dog parks. They stick near us, are good with other dogs, and I watch very closely for bad dog owners and rude dogs. It's a good way to give them a good run and make a couple new friends. I know accidents can and do happen, but I am as careful as possible and generally we find an area of our own where there are hardly any (or zero) other people and dogs around. I do not take Ripley to dog parks. Dogs are a huge distraction to him and he won't listen around them (his recall goes out the window and he loses is brain with excitement), plus I don't even know if he'll always be trustworthy with strange dogs. Right now he's (overly) friendly and loves everyone, but it's recommended not to take male Dobermans to dog parks.

I love our dog park, i don't love all dog parks. I think the main points have been addressed. There are risks involved whenever you have dogs together, multiply that ten fold if they are off lead, and one-hundred fold for each extra dog. That said, our dog park is about 3 acres, completely enclosed, with a check gate for entering-exiting,i t has a wonderful lake and best of all, there is rarely anyone there. My dog has made some great friends with a few of the dogs we have encountered, and we even plan on taking them at the same time if we can coordinate schedules. The dog gets to stretch his legs, go swimming, run around with a friend, and just be dog for a few hours. It's great. It's also a great time to enforce training, and just to hang out and spend quality time with the dog off leash without fear of it running away, or getting hit by a car. If i get any kind of gut feeling about a dog, or i notice dominant-aggressive behavior we go to a different part of the park, or just walk-run for a while on leash and head home. Better safe than sorry.

 I much prefer off leash areas over dog parks, for a number of reasons. 

1. There are usually less dogs there.  Dahlia likes other dogs but gets overwhelmed and just wanders away from large groups.  If there are 2 or 3 dogs, she has great fun.

2. The dogs there are usually better trained and better behaved, since the area isn't fenced in!

3. The off leash area around here is so much more interesting than the dog park.  There are trails and a creek for the dogs to play in.  The dog park is just a rectangle with a few trees and gravel.

 

I don't have any problem with dog parks, per se, but I just find Dahlia doesn't enjoy them that much.

Dog temprament :) I just could/wold never take my beagle and/or greyhound offl eash in an unenclosed/fenced area. My grey has a solid recall. The beagle... well, she is a beagle.

I actually live not too far from one, however I've been there once in all the years I've owned dogs. Both my dogs are fairly small, one being 6 lbs and I just don't feel comfortable with them being around strange large dogs. Daisy is not a fan of other dogs AT ALL and doesn't really feel the need to run around off leash, plus I don't trust her off leash. I have taken Penny once and it was good. I trust her off leash and she has more a big dog mentality and attitude. However, I generally just take them to a park nearby that is much more beautiful, IMO and Penny still gets to be off leash and meet new pups. We also have a 1/2 acre yard all to ourselves, anyway. I think that if I had highly active and social-able large breeds, I'd take them to the park. However, both my dogs are older toy breeds, no real need for a dog park.

  I wish we had a dog park around my area. I have heard people say good and bad things about them. My only concern would be for those people that do not pay attention to their dog/dogs, not every dog can get alone unfortunately. I know we have 3 dogs and live on 20 acres, our neighbor has 3 dogs that come over to play all the time and 1 of the dogs is not very friendly. He will growl at us and actually bit my husband, actually bit right threw his hand. Needless to say we will only let the dogs play together if the male is not there.

I have a reactive dog (to people and other dogs), so dog parks aren't an option for us.

Even if they were an option, I'm in a small town, and the nearest one is in the next town 45 min away, so at best it would be an infrequent outing. I'd be much more likely to find friendly dogs and their people in the local park rather than drive 45km only to find people insisting on bringing toys into the dog park when their dog is a resource guarder....

I bring my lhasa apsos to one of our local dog parks (we have a few to choose from) about once per week when the weather is nice. They don't deal much with the bigger dogs but do interact sometimes with the smaller ones. The different sizes of dogs tend to hang out in their respective groups anyway. I think it's good experience for them from a social point of view.