Yet Another Dog Park No No

Why do people assume that all dogs will get on together? After all, you don’t like everyone you meet, do you? Here’s another example of foolish pet-parent behavior at the dog park.

There were just a handful of us at the park with our pooches when along came two women with three large dogs. They opened the gate, released the hounds and sauntered back to their car to get water, etc. As it happens, the dogs were well-mannered and well-adjusted but none of us knew that and the two women didn’t know our dogs. I’ve seen too many incidents where dogs I’ve known as docile and friendly can suddenly become aggressive if they feel threatened.

In this instance the smart thing would have been for one of the women to stay with the dogs and the other to fetch their “stuff”. If you’re on your own and juggling dogs with all their accoutrements, then bring the things in to the park first. Just leave them inside the gate and you’ll be able to give all your attention to your pups. But NEVER leave them alone, not even for a few moments.

Here are some other things to watch out for at the dog park.

“Dogs are great. Bad dogs, if you can really call them that, are perhaps the greatest of them all.” ~ John Grogan (Marley & Me: Love and Life with the World’s Worst Dog)

A Mutt Of A Different Breed

By most standards, Muttley was born on the wrong side of the tracks but to me he was a champion. Though he never had a good hair day in his life, no pedigreed blue-blood could have had a bigger heart, nobler bearing or sweeter temperament.

For years dogs of uncertain ancestry have been given short shrift at rescue shelters. Purebreds (about 25 – 30% of the intake numbers), by dint of their association with quality, tend to be snapped up before the humbler mongrels even get a look.

But at long last, the lowly mixed-breed is gaining status; in some measure thanks to the American Mutt-i-grees Club, which promotes the adoption of mutts from rescue groups and shelters rather than feeding into the trade of puppy mills by buying your pet from a store.

Muttley came into my life at a very tough time. Lou, who had been my love, my partner and my friend, was dying of cancer. Out of the blue one day he announced that he wanted a dog. There was no way he would be able to help in the care of a pup so I knew it would fall on me and, already, caring for Lou was a full-time day and night job with medications every four hours, a special diet, endless doctors’ appointments, being companion, advisor and restorer of faith. But how could I possibly say, “No!”. So off we went to the local pound.

Walking into the shelter there was a large window with the featured pet. “Lucky” was the doggy in the window that day. Lou took one look and said, “I want that one”. My heart fell. Poor Lucky looked like a big pink rat. He was  hairless even before the Chinese Crested breed made it trendy. With protruding bones and ugly sores over his body he had the skinniest chicken legs you’ve ever seen. Those legs had ugly rope burns on them where he’d been trussed up like the Sunday roast. Lucky’s life had obviously not been a reflection of his name and I didn’t know if I had the extra energy or the soul that it would take to look after him while also caring for Lou.

Of course, when we left the pound we left with Lucky and for me that turned out to be one of the luckiest days of my life. By the time we reached home my heart was breaking for this pitiful little creature who sat on my lap looking at me with such a mixture of trepidation and hope.

Lou renamed our little pooch Muttley. We figured he was a maltese poodle mix with maybe a dash of something else. Whatever his “muttigree”, his personality was blue-blood all the way.

Lou died a few months after Muttley came home. Those months were a roller-coaster of anguish, anxiety and a fair amount of happiness and nonsense. But all that I’m going to tell you about another time and then you’ll understand why Muttley is the inspiration for this blog.

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” ~ James Herriott

Order In The Dog Park

I love the dog park! For an all-be-it unwilling suburbanite like me it can be a godsend. My alternatives are pounding the pavement while choking down exhaust fumes, driving miles to reach an area that at least has pretensions of being countryside, or confining my canines to the backyard. However, there are also some definite drawbacks to the park, not least of which is ….

The Old Maid Owner. This guy hovers over his pet in a perpetual state of nervous anxiety that Fifi will do something he thinks she shouldn’t do or that another dog will do something nasty to Fifi. His over-protectiveness is usually accompanied by a steady spate of instruction that his pet doesn’t remotely understand. “Fifi, you shouldn’t do that.” “Fifi, leave that alone.” “Don’t worry, Fifi. Daddy will chase that nasty dog away.” “You mustn’t drink that water, precious. It’s dirty.” The problem here, of course, is that the owner’s nervous tension transfers to his pet who becomes more and more hyper herself.

The See-Nothing, Do-Nothing Owner. There are plenty of these at my regular dog park. They seem to think that the park is a place for them to socialize, and while they gossip together in their little group they’re completely oblivious to the fact that their hound just pooped a mountain, or is tormenting Fifi, or leaping on other unsuspecting owners, or digging a hole to China in the walkway. What’s worse, however nicely you try and bring these problems to their attention, they close ranks tighter than a duck’s ass and rudely dismiss you.

The Steeped-In-Denial Owner. There’s a woman whose newfoundland has been in several fights. The dog is definitely dominant-aggressive and the owner is definitely passive-obtuse. A recent altercation ended with a labrador needing 18 stitches and a court case ensuing. I’ve come across this woman with her dogs on two occasions since and, both times, there have been problems involving this same dog, yet she still insists that it his not her canine’s fault. She even proclaimed on one of these occasions that my dog, Angel, was really happy to see the newfie. In fact, Angel was in more of a submissive panic mode because the dog had once attacked her, so she clung to my side like glue.

Without mincing words I’ve given this woman my opinion that her lack of control over her pet is a serious hazard and, if she insists on bringing her dog into the park, the animal should be muzzled. I might as well tiptoe through the tulips for all the good it did.

The Panic Attack. Then there are the owners who completely freak out. Here’s an example. A very large and very bouncy (but friendly) Rottweiler puppy basically sat on another dog (mid-sized) in play. Who knows why, but the dog’s owner lost it and started shrieking at the puppy, waving her arms in the air and zipping around like a whirling dervish. Not surprisingly, the commotion got the attention of every other dog in the park and they all came running to get involved in the fray, which escalated into total bedlum and the poor rotty puppy got hurt. Not too badly, but this was a situation that should never have happened. And, I have to add this, it seems that women are far more likely to react this way than men.

You might have noticed by now that all my criticisms are directed at the pet parents and not their pets. I’m firmly of the belief that it’s a very rare occurrence to have a bad dog and that blame for a dog’s bad behavior lands firmly at the feet of the owner.

Macho Man (or Woman). Usually it’s men who are guilty of this though, recently, a woman was badly bitten at my park when she committed the cardinal error of stepping into the middle of a dog-fight and reaching down to try and grab her pet. Who knows which dog actually bit her? Not that any of the dogs went after her intentionally. But what do you expect when stick your hand in the middle of a host of snarling snapping fangs? Here’s a tip. If you can’t head off a fight before it starts (learn the signs, if you don’t already know), then walk away. Most fights resolve themselves quickly and, most often, without serious injury. If you absolutely must interfere, then grab the dog’s tail and haul him away. Don’t get in the middle and reach down. More than likely you’ll aggravate the situation and risk a nasty injury yourself.

Health Risks. Any time your dog interacts with others there are health risks other than injury from fights. If your pet is healthy, the likelihood of him catching anything is slim. But don’t take your mutt to the park if he’s not up to par, and keep him away from any dog who looks at all under the weather.

Fleas and ticks can be a problem at some parks. Even if the grounds are treated other dogs bring in the little critters and pass them along. So check your own pup carefully.

The thing that bothers me the most, is dog poop. Not only is it foul-smelling when left lying but it can pose a serious health risk – to your dog and you! Animal waste is one of the most common sources of a number of diseases – coccidia, giardia, hookworms, parvovirus, roundworms, and whipworms. Animal feces can take a year to disintegrate but parasites can remain in the soil for many years. And here’s another thing – the “Fido Hypothesis”, which relates to how your dog’s waste can affect the water we drink. So be sure you have plenty of scooper bags with you at all times!

“If your dog is fat, you’re not getting enough exercise”.  ~Author Unknown

Saving Angel

I’m going to start with Angel. Because, after all, that’s what this blog is really about.

She must have been another warm, cuddlesome, adorable puppy. And another one of all too many who end up with some unmitigatingly mean, heartless or just plain ignorant human. I don’t know much about the bastard who took Angel as a happy yet helpless pup. Who broke her bones, destroyed her trust, then left her to starve to death. I do know there’s a bench warrant out for his arrest. I know the odds of that warrant ever being served are absolutely minimal. I know that if the warrant is served, punishment will be barely more than a slap on the wrist; nothing that will remotely fit the crime. And I also know that the odds of him abusing, and slowly and deliberately destroying other creatures is very high.

Anyway, we’ll get to more of that another time. As I said earlier, this is about Angel.

Sometime around the eighth month of their lives, Angel and her sister were rescued from their living hell by Southern Hope Humane Society in Roswell, Georgia. Both pups were near-dead from starvation but one was in even more desperate condition. Pressed into the corner of her torture chamber (a chain link dog kennel with no shelter from the elements), the body emaciated, skin laying loosely over the skeleton, the head seeming too big to be on those thin shoulders, her body was not only battered but horribly broken. Her rescuers didn’t know it at first but the “bastard” must have beaten her so severely that she had a broken hip and leg, for which she had received no treatment.

Something else was different about this little pup…….. her eyes; after all the savage cruelty and depravation, in the eyes there was still just a glimmer of hope.

I wasn’t there when Angel was found but I know those eyes well now. I’ve studied the images of that sweet, sad face and I’ve read a host of things in those eyes – fear, resignation, misery, pleading and, yes, hope. That, together with an innate will to survive and the tender ministrations of the folk at Southern Hope rescue saved her life. Her broken leg was mended. The hip had already begun to calcify (imagine how long she must have suffered with that pain) so was left alone. Her flesh began to fill out.

Don’t be misled, though. For Angel, the rescue and rehab were both painful and frightening, yet she never showed even the slightest aggression. Only ever offered a grateful lick or wag of the tail and was always an angel. Hence her name.

Now came the truly hard part – learning to trust, building confidence, becoming a normal, happy dog in a normal, happy family. Stacey Hall, president of Southern Hope Humane Society, deserves much credit for starting Angel on this journey. She took Angel into her own home to rehabilitate with her family and her dogs. At the same time, Angel had more help when along came Vincent.

Vincent is a miniature poodle of seemingly good pedigree and certainly noble heart who became Angel’s best friend and constant guardian. No-one knows his past; he simply turned up one day, a little thin, flea-infested and instantly attracted to Angel.

I first saw Angel and Vinny when they were featured together in a newspaper article – This Love’s Bred to be True – and knew instantly that they belonged with my husband and me. A few months earlier we had said goodbye to our much-loved Muttley, who left this life at the age of 16, and we were very ready to fill the emptiness that his death left behind. So I went to meet both dogs at a pet-adoption event. Vinny crawled straight into my lap. Angel was too traumatized to come out of her cage but lay curled in the corner doing her best to hide, so I crawled part way in to pet her. When she looked at me with those expressive eyes I was even more certain that our connection was meant to be.

Adoption proceedings weren’t simple. Southern Hope is very thorough in vetting potential “moms” and “dads”. About 10 agonizing days passed before word arrived that my husband and I were apparently acceptable parents. I say “apparently” because the adoption was not official until our home had been viewed by Stacey as well as Angel and Vincent. Happily, we were given a four-paws up and the twosome moved in.

The story doesn’t end here. Stay tuned to read: Angel’s Story; Life At Home.