Reply to Dog park etiquette

Forum Index » Pets

Reply to "Dog park etiquette"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]My dog is three. I started taking her to dog parks as soon as she was vaccinated as a puppy, so she's very comfortable in parks. She's very small, but is good at staying away from bigger dogs who are rowdy, and can stand up for herself if necessary. I've put a lot of effort into socializing and training her. We go for walks and play at home and she goes to day care some days, but she just adores the dog park.

Over the last year or so, the dog parks have become overrun with young people with big dogs that they can't --and don't want to-- control. I nearly got into a fight yesterday with two twenty-something women who were sitting on a bench while their dogs bothered everyone else, and their dogs. One of the dogs kept jumping on me. He was cute and harmless, but very big. It was extremely annoying, and I wasn't able to get him off of me to play with my own dog, who was just standing around hoping I'd throw her a ball. The dog's owner would call out to her dog every few minutes, but he ignored her. A few times, she came over to drag him away and she'd say something to me like "he's an a$$hole" or "he's just a little sh*t", but he'd come back immediately. Basically, these two women just sat there and did nothing while their dogs bothered everyone else, and this one dog bothered me in particular.

Eventually, I walked over to them and said "Look, your dog won't get off of me. Can you please control him?

They just shrugged and said "I dunno", "I dunno what you want me to do."

I suggested they take their dogs for a walk if they couldn't behave in the park, and one of them said "Why don't you and your cat go home, b*tch?"

A few of my friends, and some dog walkers I've spoken to, have confirmed that this has been a problem with the recent explosion in dog ownership. Mostly young people with big dogs, who go to the park to chat or socialize and just let their dogs run wild. I'm not sure what to do. My dog loves the park but I don't want her to get hurt, and I don't want to get into confrontations all the time.

Should I have just left yesterday and not said anything? Should I stop going to parks? [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics