Off-Leash Dog Park Adventures


Just out of curiosity, have you ever transported three black labs and a Great Dane to the dog park in a tiny red car? That's adventure #1 of an outing, just getting them all in the car without tangled leashes and someone sitting on someone else's foot. Challenge accepted - I keep the garage door closed, open the car doors,, and everyone piles in. I don't put on their leashes until we get to the park, so it's practically painless. Unless you're underneath the Dane.


Adventure #2 is seeing how our dogs react to other dogs. We have lots of neighbor dogs out in the country, but we can only hear them, not see them. When these four are off leash in the Big Dog Section, I try not to force them to be with other dogs. They can sniff each other and talk through the fence, but they play off each other's energies, which can be a challenge to control if we don't know those other dogs.


Getting our four to play with toys at the dog park is definitely adventure #3. They're not big toy fans anyway, but there are entirely too many distractions at the park. I can only imagine what the hundreds of smells must smell like, maybe a great big message board of every dog who has ever been there. So no, there was no ball or frisbee or toy designed that will distract them from that.


And adventure #4 is getting four dogs back in the car when it's time to go home. Two of them are more than ready, but the other two would stay all day if they could. So one by one they get leashed and put back in the back seat. Once the first one goes, the others have a serious case of FOMO (fear of missing out), so they can't wait to join in. And then we're off. Four adventures just scratches the surface of what life with four big dogs is like!

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