Assclownery at the dog park

Note: For sensitive dog lovers, this is just a rant, not another story of a poor pup being attacked.

So, we have this concept of the “dog park.” For the uninitiated, that means it’s a big enclosed space where dogs can romp around to their hearts’ content. Note that this is open space, so your dog WILL come into contact with other dogs that are there.

Everyone still with me so far?

Now, I repeat that this is a DOG park. And dogs are very, well, dog-like. That means that they don’t have a great understanding of “my toy” and “his toy” – they’re all just “toys.” And you have to figure that those toys are pretty much fair game for any of the dogs there. Because they’re dogs. This is why when I go and bring a couple of toys – a squeaky ball, a pull toy – I always shrug it off when people apologize that their dogs have absconded with “Kona’s toys.” Because as I tell them, once we’re in the park, they’re communal property for whoever wants to play with them. Sometimes that’s Kona, sometimes it’s Buster the mastiff who this morning enjoyed drooling all over squeaky ball. Kona doesn’t care.

(Just like I assume that when one goes to the dog park, one is likely to get jumped on, knocked into, dirty, etc. Like from Buster who was jumping up on me this morning so he could give me a kiss. All 165 pounds of him.)

I know my faithful reader(s) get all this, but I write this down in case some person looks up “dog park etiquette” and winds up here.

So imagine my surprise this morning at the dog park when a new guy comes in with his 2 black dogs and a pull toy, one of those with a ball with cloth attached so that it’s perfect for dogs to play tug-of-war, etc. And Kona is all about going after toys that other dogs also want, because he loves playing keep away. So he winds up with this toy and is trotting around with it, and those of us normal people standing around chuckle at Kona and another pup playing tug, while new guy is moaning about the fact that his 2 dogs won’t try to get the toy back if some other dog has it. But his dogs are still running around, so who cares if they’re playing with the damn toy? Apparently this guy did, because the next thing you know, he stops Kona, gets the toy away from him, knees him a couple of times since Kona is still trying to get at the toy to play with, and then he STEPS ON KONA’S PAW. And then as I’m trying to get Kona away and getting his leash, the guy goes down to the end of the dog park and continues shoving Kona aside and in general being totally obnoxious. All because he somehow wants to exist in a magic bubble where only his 2 dogs play with their toy.

So, two things that we can glean from this as our “key takeaways”:

1) If you want your dogs to play with just each other and their toy, don’t come to a dog park. Duh.
2) If you EVER step on my dog’s paw again because you’re being an assclown (i.e. not by accident, which happens), I will Beat You Down. Seriously. As I like to say, there’ll be a death......and it won’t be mine. No one harms my pumpkin, not out of general douchebaggery. I will kill you – and I’m the kind of bitter, angry person you don’t want to mess with.

Consider yourself warned.