I was reminded the other day of my aversion to dog parks.
Nine years ago, when my pointer Piper, who is now 10, was an adolescent, we were going through a few challenging behaviours, as most dog owners experience with their dogs around that age. Being a professional trainer does not automatically exempt my dogs from going through normal stages of maturity related behavioural issues.
Piper had begun to feel the need to show me how fast he could run in the opposite direction when I called him. So, part of his training was leash walking the seven blocks to the dog park, which gave me a chance to reinforce the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and practise his recall while on leash. Once at the dog park we continued the leash training for a few moments and then I would allow him off leash for social time.
It was during these training visits that I began to notice the unique individuals who congregated at the dog park. There were some - and I stress the word some - like me who worked with their dogs to encourage proper socialization while incorporating obedience training.
Then there were the chatters. They would group together and chat while their dogs played a reasonable distance away, but with little interaction except for the removal and application of the leash upon arrival and departure.
Then there were the ones who walked the perimeter of the dog park while their dogs ran about from one dog to another with very little interaction with their owners.
On this day, Piper and I started off our walk as usual, which meant I called him back after he had a brief play with a dog in the area. All was going well until we came towards a couple of rescued, retired racing greyhounds owned by a perimeter walker. Both of the extremely large and powerful males had muzzles on. I thought this was great because these dogs are typically poorly socialized and the muzzle keeps all dogs safe, or so I thought. Piper began to approach the two males when intuition began knocking at my door. Listening to it, I called him back, which he responded to. Unfortunately, the two dogs already had missile-lock on him and took off after him. The owner did nothing.
This is when everything began to move in slow motion.
The two greyhounds caught up to Piper within seconds and they knocked him over with one body check and began to attack him. I still thank God those dogs had muzzles on because one had Piper pinned on his back and was shoving his muzzled mouth at Piper's throat as if he wasn't wearing one. The other was doing the same thing, but on Piper's exposed stomach. Piper began fighting for his life and I ran as fast as my legs could carry me while yelling at the owner of the dogs to call them. But when I looked up, I saw the owner trying to find a place to put down his coffee cup without it spilling.
This is where fear turns to anger.
I threw myself at the large dogs, dragging them off Piper one by one by their hind legs. The owner finally made his way over to me and began yelling at me to leave his dogs alone.
This is where anger turns to rage.
As I approached him he began to take a few steps back. As politely as I could manage, and minimizing my use of profanity, I said, "I can see that your dogs are muzzled and I respect that. Maybe you should as well."
Because of that experience, Piper developed a fear of larger dogs that he never got over. Almost 10 years later that fear was clearly evident when we came across a Great Dane over the weekend.
Having a dog that is behaviorally challenged is not easy. I work with enough of them to truly understand this and the dog community does not make it any easier as other dog owners pass judgment and condemnation very easily.
But the best way to help your dog is to accept 100 per cent responsibility for your dog's behaviour. If it is aggressive, then muzzle it and leash it if you choose to go to a dog park.
If you don't, it could result in another dog developing a lifetime behavioural problem of its own.
Joan Klucha has been working with dogs for more than 15 years in obedience, tracking and behavioural rehabilitation. Contact her at k9kinship.com.
