Question on dogpark Etiquette...

[Twisterdog]

Originally posted by wolf_Q
This, I took as applying to me and anyone else who visits a dog park.

Well, sure. It DOES apply to you and me and everyone else who visits a dog park. Do you disagree? You are trusting the other people in the dog park, are you not? You walk in, you take off your dogs leash, and you trust that everyone else in the dog park has a fairly well-trained, friendly dog, right? You are trusting that if someone has an extremely dog-aggressive, violent, uncontrollable beast, that they left him at home. Right? Of course you are trusting those strangers, there is no other way to do it, unless you know everyone there - which is highly unlikely.

Everyone is different, and everyone is comfortable with different levels of risk. I'm not comfortable taking my small dogs to a dog park. If you are comfortable taking your larger dog to a dog park, more power to you. To each his own. I'm not criticising people who use dog parks at all. I'm just stating why I won't. People should hear both sides of the story, right?

If you take your dogs to a dog park, you (hopefully!) realize that there are certain inherent dangers and risks. If you don't realize this and are thinking there is no possible risk or danger at all, you are probably not going to be watching as closely as you should, and setting yourself and your dog up for a potential issue. Seeing dog parks, or anything else for that matter, only through rose-colored glasses is setting yourself up for a fall, to be sure.

And of course, dog parks are not the only place where risks exist. I never said that, either. Taking your dog on a walk around the block, they may meet an aggressive dog running loose. (Of course ... that's why I carry Mace on walks, too.) I simply choose not to take part in what I perceive as a risky activity for MY dogs.

And, when I use "you" in a post, I don't mean YOU personally, or anyone else personally. The proper pronoun to use would be "one" instead of "you", but I find that the majority of people are not used to seeing the pronoun "one" used a lot, and it tends to sound pretentious.

Our dog park here has a side for small dogs and a side for big dogs. So there's no 150 lb dog attacking a 10 lb dog, unless the owner is stupid enough to bring a 10 lb dog into the big dogs section, vice versa.

Well, that would make a tremendous amount of difference! It's a great idea. Unfortunately, none of the dog parks I've seen around here are divided like that.