I ventured out to the dogpark yesterday with my family, only to be irritated and miserable since my arrival. You would think that I was irritated because of a bratty dog or puppy, but no, not this time. This time, my irritation came from humans. Please know, I'm not talking about my humans, because my humans are really good with us at the dog park. I'll first talk about a female human with her little dog, who was intact, but kinda handsome. They first came in and his human didn't take him off leash and any time a dog would come up and greet him she would pull him away mumbling something weird. I wanted to go and pull the leash out of her hand but thought that would look a little aggressive, so I waited until he was off-lead to go and say my hellos. After about five minutes she finally let him off his lead and boy, was he happy. You could tell that he didn't have a lot of self-control, but he wasn't the worse dog there. He would run all oer the place, checking out each dog, with his human doing what she could to follow him. Any time he actually tried to play, she would scream his name and any time he would attempt to play, she would scream some more. I couldn't help but wonder why she even brought him to the dog park if she wasn't going to let him play. I wondered why this human even had a dog, considering she didn't seem to enjoy him at all. To me, he seemed like one of those dogs that wait until the front door is open and out he goes, running as fast as he can away from this human. It all started to come together when I heard her cellphone ring and when she picked it up, she had the same tone to the human on the other end as she used with her dog. I guess she was just an unhappy person. When playtime was over, because she just couldn't control herself any more and I think she wore herself out more than he did, she went to get him and guess what, he wanted nothing to do with her. Humans, I have a piece of advice for you...
IF YOU HAVE TO SNEAK UP ON YOUR DOG TO GET HIM, GET A CLUE! MAYBE IT'S THE WAY YOU'RE COMMUNICATING AND MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, YOU NEED TO CHANGE YOUR RELATIONSHIP!
The other humans that were wearing me out, were a nice couple with a puppy. This puppy was actually a good pup, not overly obnoxious, unusual for a pup, but was enjoying the interaction with all the dogs. But each time this pup would try and get more than thirty feet from her humans they would start calling her to them. Again, why did you bring the pup to the dog park if you're not going to let her play?
Humans, I beg of you, please get some education on how dog's interact and the communication signals that we use. It will make your dog's happier and it will make other dogs like myself happier when I'm in your presence. I overheard my human #2 ask my human #1, "why do they bring their dogs here if they don't know what they're doing?" And my human #1 had the best response and it really opened all of our eyes, "they don't know they don't know what they're doing."
And a seminar is born. My human #1 has decided to rename her Dog Park Workshop to...
'You Don't Know What You Don't Know, A DogPark Seminar'
Be sure and catch one in your neighborhood if you're one of those humans! The next seminar on Dog Communication is January 2oth, in Belleview!
