I love my local off-leash dog park! Unfortunately, some dogs and their handlers make my visits less than ideal.
In today’s mail, the September issue of The Whole Dog Journal arrived. It has an exceptional article about off-leash dog parks. It is subtitled: Rules of Dog-Park Etiquette and Deportment for Dogs and their Handlers.
It details many common problems, gives advice and has a list of simple rules to make these parks a healthy and happy place for all dogs and humans.
Tonight I read a news article from Marin County, California. Trish King, the director of the Marin Humane Society Behavior & Training Department gave a lecture on Sunday titled: Dog Parks – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. She gave some great tips to prevent problems. Here are a few:
- Keep a close eye on your dogs and be ready to intervene if it’s in trouble.
- Provide obedience training; keep moving and walking around so your dog remains aware of your presence.
- Don’t offer treats to other people’s dogs, because they will become protective of their new food source and defend it aggressively.
- Owners should also guide dogs away from the park gate to prevent an intimidating bottleneck of dogs greeting new arrivals.
- Ignorance in a dog park doesn’t necessarily mean bad people are in a dog park. It just means education is needed.
I appreciate King’s way of relating a rule with the problem it is meant to solve. It falls to all of us as dog park users to help novices understand – the rules are posted for a reason. Understanding and relaying those reasons will help to keep these community jewels safe and happy places.
Here are some other resources for off-leash dog park users:
- Pittsburgh Area Dog Park list at pghdogs.com
- Frick Involved Dog Owners (FIDO) Dog Park Advocacy and Education
- How-to: Starting a Dog Park from dogpark.com
