Friday, June 24, 2011

Dog Park Angst

As I was getting out of my car at the dog park yesterday, I noticed a scuffle between some dogs that are regulars there. Two pit bulls, one little stinker of a something-small mix who tries to mount everything in site and regularly incites trouble, and a black Lab mix. Sally and I walked in, and within a few minutes, it had blown up into an actual fight, where one of the Pit Bulls had the Lab mix by the neck and wouldn't let go. It bit the Lab mix's owner, and everyone was quite upset about it. Sal wanted to investigate (funny how dogs are compelled to do that), but I held her back.

But no one yelled, and there weren't any human scuffles. One of the dog park regular regulars, who is a psychologist/counselor by trade went back and forth between the two camps, and by the time I left they seemed to be working it out. One of the Pit's owners had been concerned that her youngish (about a year old) dog was becoming sort of aggressive. It's too bad, because it seemed to me like she was really working with the dog, and he listened to her at the dog park (like when he takes Sally's ball).

This gives me pause about the breed, I'm sorry to say. Those two Pits are nice dogs. I can attest to both of them being kind of clumsy, but friendly (one of them has a name that indicates his lack of coordination at high speeds). However, it was like a switch got flipped, and no one can predict when or how exactly it would happen. And when the switch was flipped, that dog went into some other mode. The owner of the Lab mix had to hit the Pit repeatedly over the head with one of those retractable leashes to get it to release, and then it bit him. It's scary.

1 comment:

  1. that was certainly scary-everyone in our neighborhood has at least 1 dog,but far most loved is echo-a choc. lab my next door neighbor has.they have cats too. good mousers. but echo is something else-first the cats think they are dogs and echo [ the dog ] thinks he human---lol and that is the way his owners treat him.

    ReplyDelete

Hi, sorry to make the humans do an extra step.