You should not take your dog to the dog park! I know what you’re thinking. Your thinking “then how am I going to socialize my dog?” well, that’s easy to answer but ill discuss that at another time. Now, the idea of a dog park is relatively simple. Have a gated area where dogs can run freely with other dogs where they’ll be safe from running into danger like airplanes, trains, and automobiles. Not so much the first two than the last one. It’s a simple idea but people really F up the simplicity. Now I could ramble on and on about this topic so if I go off on a tangent please bear with me. We’ll be covering things like sicknesses, bad behavior, pack order, and idiotic owners that I use to want to punch in the face. I never did that of course, but you can guess how if feel about some dog park dog owners.
When I got my first bully, it was the first time I had ever owned a dog on my own. I wanted to be the best owner possible. So, I figured out the different growth stages for my puppy and made sure that the experiences within that stage were great. As soon as my pup was old enough to bring him to the dog park we were there. But then I was met with fierce eye balls and ugly looks. Like I was so wrong to be in the park with bully “Pitbull to them.” I didn’t expect to be greeted with open arms but I really didn’t expect to be greeted with spears either. I did my best to make sure he was behaved and didn’t cause to much ruckus. My first day there other than those FN people was good. When we came back the next day it was a whole different story. See the first day only had about 3 people in the whole park so I could pick my dogs up and walk him to the other side of the park when he was being to over baring (mistake). But my second day there must have been 10 to 12 dogs in the park. It was madness. As we get in the pack was cambering to get a smell of the puppy. I set him down and walked and he made his way through the onlookers. About 10 minutes in I’m watching my dog with and eagle eye when I see one dog that hasn’t stop following him around for about 4-5 minutes. My dog isn’t cowering nor being over excited. He just minding his own business when suddenly the male dog snaps at him. I look around and everyone is having their own conversation in the park not watching their animals. So, I speak very stern and ask “who FN dog is this?” suddenly a guy hops off the bench pulls his dog away lets him go and goes to sit back down. Guess where that dog went straight back to. The guy looks grabs his dog and says he doesn’t like puppies. In my head, I’m thinking “you’ve conditioned him to act that way towards them that’s why”. I then called my pup towards the exit and went home. See that only on the second day should have showed me that it wasn’t the best idea to go there. But I didn’t know any better.
Wow, I just realized how long that story was. I won’t do that again so for this paragraph ill just paraphrase some stuff for you all. Actually, I don’t have to because it all boils down to one thing. The owner. For one most owners do not understand there is a proper way of introducing your dog into a pack. Do you know the holding area? You know, the area between the inside the dog park and outside. Well what if I told you that your supposed to let your dog run freely in that area for 2-3 minutes while your dog and the pack calms down. People don’t understand that if you allow a dog that’s excited into the dog park you are developing not only bad habits for you dog but also for the 6-7 other dogs already in the park. You’re telling them its OK to act crazy as heck because there’s a
new dog coming into the park. Or how about that when you’re in a dog park you cannot block another dog from sniffing your dog? If you do that your showing your animal that it is not OK for other dogs to meet him or her and will cause the dog to be defensive because you are acting the same way. All you’re going to do is cause a fight because you don’t know how to socialize your dog. These things and things like, not paying attention to your animal, not picking up after your animal, bringing and aggressive animal, bringing an animal that naturally cowers, picking your dog up when other dogs come to meet it, and my personal favorite, bringing your dog to the park when he or she has kennel cough or papilloma virus. The last two my pup personally went though. How he got papilloma virus from the dog park I don’t know. But if I had seen the person and noticed the dog have warts on his mouth and was at the dog park after my dog contracted it I probably would have knocked him out.
All in all, guys the dog park isn’t the place to socialize your dog. The dog park is where your dog will learn most of their bad behaviors from. Things like jumping when they want attention or growling when they don’t want anyone else to get the toy. You must understand that it isn’t the dogs in the park that make the dog park a bad idea. It’s the clueless, careless, idiot owners. The ones that neglect their dog and just bring them to the park to get out energy regardless of how the dog acts. The ones that practice bad habits like not asking for permission to pet your dog or allow your dog to jump and be petted. The ones that won’t allow your dog to go near theirs by either nudging your dog away or picking their dog up and especially the ones that think the dog park is for socializing with their dog park friends and not paying attention to their dogs. I really dislike those ones. If you were or are one of these and you still go to the dog park, please change your behavior.
