The Dog Park - The Positives

The safety of fenced-in acreage can provide a dog with some freedom to roam and run, but I think the freest feeling a dog park provides is your lack of worry. When you feel more free and relaxed, your dogs do too.

While fences don't mean complete safety, for a dog like Foster, the boundary of a fence creates a comfort zone for me. Our neighborhood does not allow fences, and I'm not comfortable with electric containment systems, so I accompany my dogs every time they need to go out. With Luna, and before her Satchel and Koko, there is never a concern she'll run away. I trained them all to know their boundaries - Koko wanted, and Luna wants, to stay near me anyway - and I've done the same training with Foster, but after a year, he is still enticed by the prospect of an unsupervised field trip into the woods. A trip to the dog park means he doesn't have to be attached to me by a leash. He can just be a dog.

Being a dog means being around other dogs and using one's nose. A dog park can be perfect for that. Calm, attentive, good owners who bring calm, balanced, good dogs to a dog park help provide an essential element to a successful, fulfilling adventure for a dog.

Being around other dogs - Socialization:

Dogs know we are not dogs, and they benefit from canine companionship. There are a lot of wrong ways to bring dogs together, but done well, the experiences your dog will have at a dog park can teach him more things more quickly than you could teach him on your own. Dogs learn so much about manners and limits and play from other dogs. Dogs encourage and accept good behavior, and they correct unacceptable behavior quickly and without grudge. Dogs are awesome that way.

Also, it's not just the interaction with other dogs that benefits your dog socially. Walking to the park or riding in the car, entering the park, and encountering new people all provide exposure to experiences in which your dog must follow your lead and use her skills. You are helping build her confidence, as well as practice and succeed in our social world.

Using their noses:

Dogs who have been traumatized or overly-humanized tend to lose the connection to their noses. They don't absorb information about their surroundings by smelling. When attempting to rehabilitate dogs like these, encouraging the use of their noses seems to provide quick healing. While dogs can get into trouble in your home from using their noses - getting into garbage for example - a dog park can provide them with the chance to use their noses for good. Inhaling the scents of nature, and gathering information about other dogs, can be a sort of reset button for your dog. Connecting her to Mother Nature helps her connect to herself.