Thursday, April 8, 2010

Dog Park Etiquette

I just finished writing this, and saw AHA has posed the question of what people think is proper. The way I see it, now you have two resources to draw from.

Now that the weather is really changing, the dog parks are hopping. I thought it would be a good timely topic. In essence, you should be sure your dog is healthy (up to date on shots, etc.), happy (plays well with other and is not intimidated or anxious around other dogs), and remember the park is for everyone (just because you don't mind doesn't mean someone else doesn't mind).

My best example is one of our dogs. He was abused before we got him and as a result he tends to be very anxious, is fearful of and barks at people. For whatever reason, he loves the dog park and doesn't bark at people while we're there... to a point. While we have him there, we stay close to him and are hyper-aware of any cues that he may be getting stressed or reaching his threshold, or the other visitors are reaching theirs. Before that point, we leash him and keep him away from other people and, if necessary, dogs. If he doesn't calm down some, we just cut our trip to the park short. (I should mention that he has never bitten anyone or we wouldn't bring him to the park at all.) We do our best to infringe on our dogs, ourselves, and the other visitors to the park having the best possible time.

The Whole Dog Journal has a good article on the subject that's a bit more in depth.
http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/sample/a_bark_in_the_park.html

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