My husband and I recently moved back to a city in Northern California that has an itsy bitsy dog park. While it's nice to have separation between the large and small dog sections of the park, sometimes the area is not large enough to hold the dog personalities that are within its gates. Last Saturday we decided to give our pup the chance to roam off-leash at this tiny park, with unfortunate results.
As we arrived we were pleased to see four other small dogs (three terriers and a toy poodle mix) had also come to play. Suddenly, as we got closer to the entrance gate, a fight broke out between the miniature pinscher and toy poodle/bichon frise cross who were nearest to where we stood. This action immediately caused me to put my dog behavior goggles on, because I knew I'd need to watch the min-pin carefully. Little did I know, he was not the real aggressor.
I soon noticed two rat terriers sitting with a rather large woman over to the side of all the dog action. She had one dog in her lap (in my opinion a no-no at the dog park, as it promotes aggressive behavior) and the other was slinking around her, ears back, tail between his legs. I heard the owners of the min-pin and bichon mix discussing this woman quite loudly, "Her dogs attacked mine two on one and she did nothing to stop it," "Her dog attacked my dog too!" My gaze quickly changed from the harmless min-pin to the lurking terriers across the way.
Dog behavior is not always easy to decipher, but there are signs of aggression that show themselves before an attack. I believe the reason why we saw the miniature pinscher attack the poodle mix was because both had been agitated by the two aggressive rat terriers. I decided to keep an eye on them, in case they went after Apollo. Within a few minutes I noticed that the terrier on the ground was now stalking Apollo. Every time our dog ran within 5 feet of the terriers' owner, this little bugger would run out in an attempt to intimidate. I kept my eye on him and, soon enough, the attack happened.
The aggression in this little dog was intense. Fear aggression is the worst kind, because you never know how it's going to manifest itself. I believe this little dog was also feeling territorial, since his owner was sitting in her chair with the other terrier on her lap. He felt the need to show there was a boundary that no dog in the park could cross. As soon as Apollo got close enough (about 3 feet away from the woman), the rat terrier charged, fangs bared, growls emitted, snarls building and went right for Apollo's throat! To my surprise, the woman did nothing. She just watched as her dog viciously attacked mine. Apollo was surprised and didn't know how to react. He can be dominant, but he's not big into fighting other dogs.
I realized the woman was not going to respond and decided to intervene. I walked quickly over and, without physically intervening (that is never a safe move, dogs can't distinguish a human hand from a dog body in the heat of the moment) I yelled out, "HEY!" Which caused the rat terrier to lose focus and allowed Apollo to escape. The woman suddenly came to life and said "No", as if this would help the situation. I decided not to scold the woman, although I wanted to, because the last thing we needed now was human drama. I kept Apollo over with the other dogs, who were playing well together now, and let Jace know what had happened. Now we were both keeping our eye on the rat terriers.
Apollo quickly went back into play mode and brought us part of a tennis ball to throw. As my husband threw the ball, I noticed it landed right next to the rat terriers' "territory". Apollo ran to get the ball and was sideswiped, again, by the unstoppable force that resided in that area of the dog park. As with before, the rotund mass of an owner did NOTHING to dissuade her dog! Jace was not having this and put himself between Apollo and mini-Cujo. He even had to push the dog away with his foot, it was so caught up in the attack! Eventually the lady stood up and quietly asked Jace if he had any food in his pocket, as if this was his fault. How rude! She tried, unsuccessfully, to round up her dogs and then sat back down in her chair. This was getting ridiculous!!!
Jace and I made the decision to take Apollo out of the small dog park and bring him over to the any-size side, even though there were some larger dogs there. Within about 5 minutes of us walking out, the lady with the rat terriers left. Good riddance!
My goal in publishing this blog is to keep people aware of what to watch for not only in dog behavior, but in humans as well. If you see an owner doing nothing to stop his or her aggressive dogs, leave the dog park or call the dog park authorities, if their number is listed somewhere in the park. It's not worth the risk of your dog getting hurt to stick around and allow these behaviors to continue. Another thing we could have done was to try and get the other women in the park to stand up to the rat terrier owner with us, but they didn't seem too willing. Take precaution when you see an owner with a dog sitting on his/her lap. This does spike the chances of aggressive reactions.
Remember to watch and listen while at the dog park. There are ways to keep fights from happening. Move your dog to another area if aggressive behavior is shown. Leave the dog park altogether if your dog is the one showing hardcore aggression. Any dog who has fear is a loaded gun. Watch out for dogs who stick super close to their owners and lash out at any dog who walks by. Just keep an eye out for anything that doesn't seem friendly. We need our dog parks to be fun places to visit, not hotbeds of aggressive behavior!
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