Dog Park Etiquette

Why do some dog owners have to be assholes?!

Today we took Cleo down to a little dog park that we like near downtown Tampa. It’s actually a combination of a park and a beach, which is cool because it’s given us a chance to get Cleo acclimated to actually swimming, whereas she still hasn’t dared to set foot in our own pool just yet. Plus, this place has a great location in a neighborhood that I’m very quickly falling in love with and would love to eventually buy a house if we can somehow sort out the ridiculous purchase prices … but this particular post is about assholes at the dog park, not how you should buy my books so I can afford to buy my dream house…

😉

So anyways, aside from the couple of dogs that she had doggie class with and the one time that her brother came over to visit, this and one other dog park has pretty much been her only exposure to being around other dogs. She prefers playing with dogs that are her own size, although she can handle the occasional bigger dog when they’re just one-on-one, but she started having problems today when she’d start playing with just one other dog and end up getting chased by a pack of four or five of them.

Also, one dog in particular was hell-bent on humping her.

Now both incidents made me mad to varying degrees because in either scenario, only one owner out of the entire pack of four or five was ever nearby to even keep an eye on what their dogs were doing. I noticed that it’s somewhat commonplace at this park for people to let their dogs off the leash, then just go sit on a bench and chat while the dogs do their thing. Which I suppose is fine to some extent, but when your dog starts humping my dog and she has to come hide behind me because he won’t lay off, at that point the eventual giggled, “Sorry!” is too little, too late.

Seriously, where were you ten minutes ago when your dog first started violating mine from behind?!

Also frustrating when other people don’t watch their dogs is because when I was trying to play fetch with Cleo, four other dogs would go dashing towards the ball and she’d take off in terror upon seeing the huge mass of dog leaping at her! I mean, it’s not really the dogs’ fault – they just want somebody to play with them … but I don’t want to play with somebody else’s dog, I want to play with my dog!

Also also, I shouldn’t even have to mention this, but I did find one particular length of grass that was exceedingly covered in dog shit. Needless to say, it would’ve been wonderful had the original owners picked up said dog shit instead of me doing so by means of stepping in it when we were getting ready to leave.

Come on, fellow dog owners – we’re all in this four-legged frenzy together!

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