Bad Dog Park Etiquette

I dont go to the dog park anymore, a lot of the people described above and I'm sure many are on this board, but they dont consider themselves as such.

Probably the ones that get most on my nerves are the paranoid, typically middle aged women with little dogs, they literally flip out whenever a larger dog comes over to say hi (just sniff), they grab the dog and go ... " omg, my wittle foofoo, are you ok, did that big scawy dog scawe you??"(at this point suffocating the dog in the her flabby arms).

Or the other day there was one woman with a grossly obese pug and she had it in a stroller!! the poor dog was squealing, trying to get out and play but she wouldnt let him.. sigh..
Dear woman, let the dogs be dogs for christs sake, I get a kick out of watching Uno run around, roll in the mud, eat deer poo, do his crazy zoomies and wrestle with other dogs so the hair and drool flies! They love it!

Way to make friends.

eh.. I hardly consider that statement to be offensive nor am I pointing fingers at anyone, I'm sure theres people at the park who get offended by my dog since he likes to hump, and consider me one of "those".

I bring my FOUR dogs to the dog park. I've also brought SEVEN dogs to the dog park. I usually go during the AM, when there is hardly no one there. But I guess.........I don't see the problem. I can control my four dogs, and people are actually suprised how well they listen when I call them when they can't even control their ONE dog. Princess usually sticks by my side, Pepe is getting loved on by people, Valentino is playing with other dogs, Princess Mama is either in the pool or trying to give me a heart attack trying to find a way out the dog park once she wants to go home lol.

Sure, I bet lots of people get offended by lots of different things. Personally I don't mind the humping behavior so much as long as the owner stops it. One time I went to the park and this guy's dog was humping every dog he came across.... but did the owner do anything? No, half the time he was off in la-la-land not even paying attention to his dog. That's when it's annoying.

As a middle-aged woman I am offended by the "flabby arms" description. Just kidding.

One big thing that I am bothered about at my DP is that people let their dogs off leash in the parking lot. The just let them right out of the vehicle with no control. On a busy day there are cars everywhere coming and going and dogs running around them. I am always so scared to run over a dog accidently or see a dog get run over. I think that is very unresponsible of the owner. Teagan is small enough that I can carry her or walk her on a leash until we get secured the gate to let teags off.

If MericoX reads this thread, she probably thinks I'd fall a bit into "The paranoid" description...lol (We've gone to the dog park together with our dogs a few times)

But I swear I'm working on that, I truly am. *grin*

Any dog can/should be waled on a leash to the door, they don't have to be small. I don't understand why people takes risks like that. It would freak me out too.

I agree. I have been tempted before to speak up when I was backing up and some dogs ran right behind me I had to stomp on by breaks it scared the living day lights outa me. Or whenever I see a dog without a leash on. Its not hard to walk your dog on a leash until you get inside the gate. And I find that the dogs are going crazy because they are so excited to go into the DP. One day a dog is going to get run over accidently and its going to be blamed on the person who is driving not the person who failed to put their dog out of dangers way and put a leash on them.

I am still missing your entire point in being on this board...

Your dog is humping other dogs but you complain about how other people are acting, really?!

and I am totally missing what someones weight would have to do with how their dogs are treated, or their age for that matter, hmm

Jeez, so much for lighthearted topic..
Yes, he humps, but he gets humped by other dogs as well, I dont encourage it, but dogs will be dogs.

I don't think BlueChaos meant to be offensive PoodleMommy, I think it was supposed to be a joke.

I am a little more tolerant then most I think, like BlueChaos said, dogs will be dogs. Of course if something unsafe is going on, then there's a problem. But for dogs that hump, as long as the owner is doing something about it I don't think it is an issue. Tucker used to be quite a humper, and it shocked me how huffy people would get about it. As soon as I saw him doing it, I would stop him and if necessary, put him on a leash. People would get so incredibly offended though, I swear some must have thought my dog was raping theirs or something

Spy also gets flack from people because he is intact. It's actually really frustrating. He always minds his own business and just plays fetch the entire time. However, when someone's dog can't keep their nose out of his butt or become aggressive, *I* am blamed for bringing an intact dog to the park.

I don't think intact dogs shouldn't be allowed at a dog park. I think it should be more of a case by case situation. Spy is no trouble and enjoys the park. Why should he not be allowed to go because other neutered dogs are not under control or have problems with him?

If your dog park allows intact dogs and someone complains about it then tell them that their allowed. If their is a rule against it as ours is then it is a problem.

What are we talking about when we say dog park?

Is it like the ones you see on the dog whisperer where it is this barren fenced in place teeming with dogs?

Because where I take my dog are much much different. There's one close by that runs along the river and is a combo of grassy spread and trail (with trees and stuff) and bush trails. There's the university grounds (100+ acres?) and there's a 10,000 acre park (of course most people stay in one area). There's a couple of beaches as well. There is no separation. Big dogs, little dogs, pit bulls, intact dogs (in some cases horses) and I've never heard someone complain or seen a fight or anything. I know I break the rules of a couple of them (can't remember which) by bringing an intact dog but nobody's every mentioned it or given him dirty looks or anything. He minds his own beeswax. We don't go around looking for balls on a dog or flipping out when dogs act like dogs (ie, humping).

I've never seen the Dog Whisperer/LA style park IRL.

I ask because I can certainly see lots of opportunity for altercations in the LA style parks. But in the kind I go to, I'm walking, I have a stick, the dog's walking and paying attention to the stick, other dogs are either playing or fetching or swimming or whatever, and I've never seen much of a problem. Once my dog got his hackles up but I called him away and that was that. Another time he was really into another, smaller dog. He stuffed his head into its bum and followed it intensely like that. Of course I grabbed him and apologized to the owner and moved on.

When I've seen humpers everyone just sort of smiles and the dog is yanked off and I dunno... there just don't seem to be issues. I'm not sure if this is because we're talking about different styles of park or because I'm just not frequenting them enough to catch the upsets.

This is always my nightmare when I'm leaving the dog park. Too many people don't leash their dogs outside the park. If a dog is behind my car, I'd never know it. I'll never understand why people take the risk, no matter how obedient you think your dog is there's no reason for them to not be leashed when in a parking lot.

Xandra,

I personally am talking about a non-fenced, large grassy area with a small river and some trees. Normally there are 2-4 dogs there at once. No idea what anyone else is talking about...

The dog parks vary a lot here. We regularly go to one 'unofficial dog park' but I won't touch the official ones. the unofficial one is simply an off leash park. It is large, not fenced, has a pond and some streams and a frisbee golf course (lol) and a road goes through the middle but rarely cars come past. Some people bring their dogs to play with other dogs, others don't. People are 99% of the time respectful about not letting their dogs bother others uninvited. If you want to play then that's fine, but if you just want to walk and ignore the other dogs, that's fine too. I even see people set up agility courses there and work on training. A lot of hunters work on retriever training there too. I have NEVER seen an altercation there in all my time going there and we go daily for 2 hours usually. There are no rules about dogs being intact, etc, or whatever there.

Now the dog parks... one is about 3 acres MAYBE of no trees or anything. It is not much larger than my yard. It is jammed full of dogs and there is no segregation based on size. There are fights a LOT. It's terrible.

The other is nice and segregated by size. 5-6 acres total and a pond. It's usually empty in the day but in the evenings it gets packed. There are a lot of people that bring aggressive dogs there and there is almost always a fight on the large dog side of the park when I've been there. We don't go anymore at all.

So yeah, depends a lot on what you're talking about.