SacPaws.com

I know I've posted before about certain local dog parks my wife, me, and our dogs do not frequent because of aggressive dogs and their distracted owners.  I have to tell you all about an unfortunate event that occurred at our favorite dog park, Partner Park in the South Land Park area.  First on a happier note we had a wonderful surprise birthday party for my wife Kerry at Partner Park on Saturday, and she truly was surprise as she didn't know I had invited 20 of her friends along with our families to have a picnic.  The dogs loved the party too because of course we were at the dog park so they could run around and play and play and play.  We of course didn't have any food within the fenced confines of the dog park proper but kept that outside on the grass :).

 A lovely woman I had seen at the park before came up to us during the party and wondered aloud" what we were doing, and that we looked like we were having a lot of fun", which we were of course.  She continued into the park and her dog frolicked with all the others that were there.  Right after we were done cleaning up after the party this same friendly woman came up and asked us about dog park etiquette regarding waiting for someone to leash their dog prior to coming into the 'air-lock' area (that's what we like to call it anyway).  Apparently this woman had asked a man who had just arrived to wait until she could get the leash on her dog before he came in with his dog, and he responded rudely 'saying that he didn't see any sign saying that', and she responded 'that it was just common courtesy she was asking for for the safety of their dogs', which he ignored and stormed in.  As she was telling us this story the man started yelling and making threats from inside the dog park that he was going to come and 'take care of her', to which we told him we would call the police if he didn't knock it off.  She looked frightened so we waited for her to get into her vehicle and leave, and then we left while calling the police (non-emergency number since this guy fortunately didn't try and follow her or us) and they said they would go and check it out.

We are wondering what is wrong with people?  Isn't the dog park supposed to be a fun place to take our pets and families, so the dogs and frolic and the families can relax?  Our moral here is to just treat others as you wish to be treated.  We hope the police or at least the other regular dog park folks made this seemingly 'crazy' and aggressive person think twice before behaving in such a rude and scary way at the dog park again.  I must say he seemed to have a lovely and sweet lab, so thankfully dogs aren't always a reflection of their owners.