Dog Parks

Good morning; what a busy day I had yesterday. Out of all the dog shoots and activities I spent a good amount of time at a local dog park. As a trainer people often ask me about going to dog parks and I may have already covered this somewhere on my blog but it was what came to mind this morning as I sat down with my laptop. Congestion and stress.

Dog parks are great, they are a wonderful place to socialize ones dog or dogs. But they can also be bad and typically the bad part is either over crowding or unattentive guardians. Over crowding really factors in on the size of the dogpark. Each dog should feel like they can move away and be alone otherwise the stress level can rise which leads to fights.

Before I entered the park lastnight there was quite a fight going on; the kind that you have to break up. It had not reached the latch on stage and was luckily still at the whole lot of noise level. Looking at the size of this park there should have been a maximum of 6 dogs in there; there was more than that. The small dog park which is on the other side of the road had 2 or 3 which was very good.

The other issue of non attentive guardians is a common one. The other day I was at the park and there was a guy on a laptop. The only thing that brought him out of his computer trance was the sound of his dog harrassing the other patrons. If you bring your dog to the park you need to watch them; very closely. Dogs give off signals that if you are not watching you obviously will not see. You should not allow your dog to harass, torment, mount or intimidate any of the other dogs in the park. It is everyones right to have a good time.

So llike I said yesterday, try to hit the off hours. Its definitely worth it for your dogs enjoyment.