I took Juno to the dog park today and after a while a couple pitties showed up. One of them came over to Juno and did the play bow, wiggle butt thing and they were getting along fine, the dog wasn't much bigger than Juno and they had a similar style of play. Fine and dandy.
So we start walking away and then Juno decides she wasn't done playing, so she runs back over to the pit bull. They start chasing each other and I'm not sure what made her do this at the particular moment, but Juno then decided to flop over on her back (she normally is pretty submissive and will do this when INITIALLY meeting a dog) and the pit bull then got this rather aggressive sounding growl, started going at her neck (not sure if he was biting or what? But I don't see any signs of anything on her) and Juno just yelped and yelped and yelped, and he was not going to back off of her.
This dog's owner does NOTHING and someone else went over and pulled the dog off of Juno. I grab Juno and am putting her leash on her so we can get out asap, and both the pit bulls are all over us... at this point I guess the owner must have came over, I was too pissed off to notice and my mom asks him, "can you please grab your dog?" His response? "Don't worry, he doesn't bite."
To which my mom just repeated GRAB YOUR DOG.
Now, I've read numerous places that dog-aggression in pit bulls is just something to expect and be prepared for. I always assumed, well, any dog of any breed can be DA so as long as a pit bull is properly socialized, that shouldn't be an issue. But now I'm starting to rethink that, because this dog totally initiated the play and they seemed completely fine until he just... snapped.
Sooo, opinions? Should pit bull owners be bringing their dogs to dog parks?
So we start walking away and then Juno decides she wasn't done playing, so she runs back over to the pit bull. They start chasing each other and I'm not sure what made her do this at the particular moment, but Juno then decided to flop over on her back (she normally is pretty submissive and will do this when INITIALLY meeting a dog) and the pit bull then got this rather aggressive sounding growl, started going at her neck (not sure if he was biting or what? But I don't see any signs of anything on her) and Juno just yelped and yelped and yelped, and he was not going to back off of her.
This dog's owner does NOTHING and someone else went over and pulled the dog off of Juno. I grab Juno and am putting her leash on her so we can get out asap, and both the pit bulls are all over us... at this point I guess the owner must have came over, I was too pissed off to notice and my mom asks him, "can you please grab your dog?" His response? "Don't worry, he doesn't bite."
Now, I've read numerous places that dog-aggression in pit bulls is just something to expect and be prepared for. I always assumed, well, any dog of any breed can be DA so as long as a pit bull is properly socialized, that shouldn't be an issue. But now I'm starting to rethink that, because this dog totally initiated the play and they seemed completely fine until he just... snapped.
Sooo, opinions? Should pit bull owners be bringing their dogs to dog parks?