If you don’t know, my daughter– The Teenager about to turn 20– works in the pet care industry, primarily doing dog walks and in-home pet care visits. She is also a dog trainer, and spends a lot of time and energy studying dogs, observing dog body language and finding solutions to people’s problems with their dogs.
She is the one who encouraged me to apply for a service dog, and although I grew up with dogs, she has taught me so much about dogs and why they do what they do.
Her dog, F. Bean Barker, who, will be four this summer, can be reactive and territorial. The Teenager has worked very hard to decrease her dog’s reactivity and expose the dog to situations to improve her tolerance. Today, we took her to a dog park. The dog park is less than two miles away from our home and off-the-beaten path so it’s not as well-traveled as some other local places. It has a lot of green area to explore even outside of the dog park. So, if the dog park is occupied, there is other stuff to do.
This dog park has two sides, one for dogs 25 pounds and under, the other for dogs larger than 25 pounds. Each side has a double gate system, so you can enter the first enclosed room and make sure your dog is ready to enter the other side without risking releasing any dogs already in the park. (In this dog park, there is also a gate between the two sides.)
Now, if you do not have a dog or if you have a rural dog who has no need of a dog park, you may not understand that dog parks can be extremely dangerous. You never know how other people’s dogs will react, and you can find that certain dogs have behaviors that can unnerve the most calm and pleasant dog. Owners often don’t keep close enough control over their dogs inside the park, believing the environment is contained and safe. But just like two normally well-behaved children can suddenly behave like cold-hearted killers on a public playground, dogs can change in this unfamiliar and potentially unmonitored environment.
We know Bean is a good dog, well-trained with a recall, but that she often has a hard time with other dogs especially if they aren’t appropriately socialized. Now, even if you think your dog is “good with other dogs” or “well-socialized,” you may not understand dog body language or stress signals to know how well your dog is doing in a new situation.
Knowing this, we brought plenty of our dog’s favorite treats, put her in a harness and on a prong collar and tucked a can of “pet corrector” into our gear. When we arrived at the dog park, one adult and one child had two small dogs running the entire expanse of both sides of the dog park. The Teenager decided not to engage and walked the dog around the human passive recreation trails.
The family soon left, taking their two small dogs off leash through the parking lot and leaving every gate in the dog park open— the two entering the small dog park AND the interior. That means if someone had entered the large dog park, appropriately, the large dog could have run into the small dog side and exited into the busy parking lot. Really?
Needless to say, this dog grandmother went through and checked every gate before Bean and The Teenager entered.
I sat under the pavilion and watched while Bean and The Teenager explored.
I was technically lookout, because The Teenager had removed Bean’s leash and if another dog came The Teenager wanted enough time to leash her dog and make sure Bean was under control, or at least, obedient.
I looked up from my book (Hunter’s Shea’s Manrattan which I am enjoying very much) and there was an unattended mastiff with no leash standing outside the gate. The Teenager already had Bean outside the dog park and releashed. So, we left.
The owner of the mastiff strolled leisurely to the gate, while his unleashed dog just had free reign. Why don’t people have common sense???
Dogs in public should be leashed. It’s a law. I don’t care how well-behaved your dog is– if it is attacked or frightened, it will end up in a fight. Even the best dog in the world would defend itself in a fight, so regardless of how the fight starts, both dogs could be injured or killed.
And, as someone on a wait-list for a service dog, it angers me to see how many people don’t understand why certain laws exist regarding where dogs can go and how they should be handled. A dog masquerading as a service dog in a store for example not only might create a bad example for real service dogs, but if it is not trained properly it could attack or spook another animal (or a person or a service dog). A service dog that encounters poorly-managed and badly trained animals in public could be attacked or spooked in such a way that it might not be able to do its job, creating a financial and practical hardship for the disabled person relying on that dog.
So please, leash and control your dogs as the laws ask you to do.
Angel Ackerman 