Thursday, March 27, 2008

The times they have a-changed

It was a perfect dog park day. Not too cool, not too warm, breezy but not windy and a good mix of dogs. Sigh. A year ago Dogger woudl have run and played with her friends while I talked with mine. This year Dogger was leashed and we skulked around the perimeter waiting for the small dogs to get out of the small dog park. While we were skulking we ran into a few dogs... A year ago I would have pet the other dog and encouraged Dogger to go play, it was like a mantra go play, go play, go play! This year I held my breath and encouraged the other dog to go away, go away, go away! . I wish along with Doggers life saving pill there was a social life saving pill I could give her too so we could go to the park and go play! go play! go play! I don't know what happened to her over the past year but now I'm afraid to let her off leash at the off leash dog park.

Back when we started going, two years ago now, there were six, eight dogs at the park every day at most. I knew all the people and their dogs. I knew the dogs better then the dog people because I knew all the dogs names. It was calm and nice and we all had a good time. We didn't know each others names, but we saw each other every day and talked for hours. The dogs didn't really know what they were supposed to do, but they liked the attention from the people even if they didn't know what to make of the other dogs. But we all learned about dominance and the role of humping. Sometimes you are the humper sometimes you are the humpee. Boy dogs hump other boy dogs, girl dogs hump other girl dogs, girl dogs hump boy dogs. It's a dog thing.

Times changed. More people started to come with more dogs. Instead of six or eight dogs there were sixteen or eighteen dogs. This leads to nervousness. There also started to be intermittent dog fights. Intermittently, with Dogger as a participant.

These scare the shit out of me whether Dogger was participating or not and they totally kill a good dog park buzz. Everything is nice, it's pretty the dogs are happy, the people are happy and then all of a sudden - Dogagedden breaks out. Once there has been a fight, there is a better than average chance there will be another. It's like an actor "going up" on stage, all it takes is one of them to lose it and all the others start to think about it and hoping it doesn't happen to them and pretty soon it's all they can think about and pretty soon they can't remember their lines either. Fights make everyone tense and pretty soon it spreads to the dogs and all it takes is one new dog to walk in and it can get ugly.

Now, I am phobic. I have developed a phobia about Dogger getting into it with another dog. I take Dogger to the park because she loves it so much and I have such happy memories there and then I wait for her to tear a dogs throat out. I make her stay in the small dog park or failing that option (damn small dogs! Don't they know they are supposed to "think they are large dogs" and "hate" the small dog park? Cut a big dog some slack! and go play in the big dog park with the other little dogs), I make her stay on the leash, in the off leash dog park! Because what if? phobic, phobic, phobic.

Today the small dogs wouldn't leave the small dog park so Dogger and I left early and toured the historic district. We had a nice walk, we went home, I fed her, we both watched some TV and then around seven I took her out again , she was totally perplexed by this change in routine. I told her we were going for another walk for her own good. She wasn't sure about this. She is the only dog in the world that would question getting two walks in an evening.

We walked to the baseball field and I debated the karma of using a new tennis ball I found outside the baseball field on the other side of the tennis court fence. I did use the ball, Dogger thought it was much better than her own old, nasty tennis ball, but, I did leave it at the park when we left, outside the fence where I found it. A little scuffed up but still there should its owner come looking for it.

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