Dog Parks again

A few years ago, I made a post about the dog park that Sunny and I were going to. It was a big part of my life for several years, but last year, they closed it for refurbishing at about the time I was spending a lot of time on Bonnie's estate. So I stopped being in the habit of stopping what I was doing at 6 PM and going there and hanging out with Sunny's and my human and canine friends.

There is actually an enclosed dog run not too far from there. It's nothing like as good a space but does seem to fill a similar function for a smaller number of people.

I went to check it out last night, because starting next Thursday, Sunny and I are going to be having his cousin Monte stay with us while my mother and sister go to Poland for two weeks. Now that Sunny isn't moving so fast, there are a number of places I can let him off the leash that aren't official dog parks, but I wouldn't want to do that with a young, active dog like Monte who doesn't know the area.

As a place to take Sunny, it's no better than a lot of more convenient places we go, but assuming Monte turns out to be a good dog park dog, I'll probably be bundling both dogs into the car and taking them there while I have the two of them to deal with.

One thing I noticed was that the owner who spent the whole time she was there on her cell phone had to leave sooner than she had planned on because her dog (a 2-year old Newfoundland) had some undesirable interaction with another dog (I didn't see what it was; I doubt that it was anything serious). People really shouldn't assume a dog park is a substitute for interacting with their dogs -- you should be using the time to socialize with both the dogs and the humans so that your dogs get used to how it's done right.

Related posts:

1. Dog parks: a compromise
2. Dog Parks
3. Dog pill popping party