A few weeks ago we found a nice community park that includes a dog park. Since we have basically no yard and Maho needs to burn energy we've taken her there a couple times. I thought she would love it and had visions of her running, chasing and making lots of new doggie friends.
Turns out she's more of a loner.
When we take her inside the fence, she is excited to go find a place to do her business and then she likes to stay RIGHTBYMYSIDE. The other dogs try to come play and sniff, but she's not interested. To make matters worse, after a while of walking around (maybe a little running) she is foaming at the mouth so she looks like a crazy dog. I try to take her to the water bowl, but either she is not a fan of community-shared water or she thinks she doesn't need a drink. The foaming is gross though.
On top of that, she stands by the fence door waiting/whining for someone to come in or out so she can get out. To go where I'm not sure since I stay inside the fence with her, but she's more interested in all the people and kids at the park than the other dogs.
She has issues.
And after a little incident at the dog park yesterday, Jackson may have issues too.
Two older men came into the dog park with their greyhounds. Big, sleek retired racing dogs. Since I was standing near the fence when they came in (because that's where Maho likes to hang out) I heard them talking to another couple and the man said that he wasn't sure if he wanted to let one of the dogs off the leash because it had eaten smaller dogs before. Since the dog park we were in was for dogs 30 pounds and up I guess he thought they would be safe.
I went to sit down at the picnic table and watch all the dogs (with my dog beside me) and soon Patrick and the kids were done playing at the basketball court and came to join me. One of the greyhounds started chasing a springer spaniel type dog and continued until it started to attack it with a bunch of the other dogs following. Of course the old man could not get to his greyhound to be any help and the poor spaniel was yelping. It really was a big, terrible scene. Some other owners finally got the greyhound off and the spaniel owner tended to his dog. Then some loud name calling and yelling obscenities ensued and the scene just got worse. All of this in front of KIDS.
Jackson is our most sensitive kid and all the events taking place really bothered him. He was almost in tears, saying he never wanted to come back to this park again. So we had to explain that the greyhound was doing what it's trained to do in racing, chase a small animal, and that the owner just couldn't control it and that in the end we were thankful that the spaniel was not hurt. It was scary, especially with the all the fighting afterwards.
I don't think he'll forget about it anytime soon, but I hope that next time we can have a much more positive experience at the park.
And that Maho learns to be more social.
