Originally posted to NYC Moms Blog - May 30, 2010
Okay, okay. I was warned. A dog is a lot of work. It is like having another kid, people said. Especially when you live in the city. And, admittedly, it has been a lot of work. But he is a sweet guy and I love having him. But no, it is not like when I had a dog as a kid. Then you could let the dog out the door and expect he'll show up again sometime later all exercised and hungry. Of course, I don't think anyone does that anymore, even in the suburbs, but at least there you have a yard. Here, if you want your puppy to get real off-the-leash exercise, you have to take him to the dog run. That was the part of puppy ownership I was not fully prepared for. It's like before you were pregnant and you'd walk right by the playground without a second glance. Then you got the baby itch and you'd look longing over the fence your eyes all wide, you might even have uttered "awww, look how cute." Then you had that baby and the next thing you knew the playground was your second home and you started to learn that not all of those babies or toddlers or preschoolers are as cute as they look from the other side of the fence. That's what the dog run is beginning to look like for me.
When we first got the dog in October I thought maybe we would go to the run, maybe not. Then, as he grew it became apparent he was really going to need the dog run at some point. On advice from our vet we waited until he was older. Closer to seven months because the dog run can be a dirty place. When we first went it seemed ideal. There was some big dog rough-housing that I had to get used to but with support from the other owners I did. Mostly my worries were that my dog was somehow not being "doggish" enough. He is a hyper beast and, I thought, maybe annoying to the other dogs. Everyone assured me he was just a puppy, no worries, he was normal. It was a lot like the experienced mother in the playground who reassures you your kid will someday stop eating sand.
Eventually, we started making the dog run a regular part of the dog's day. In the last two weeks we have even worked out a routine. After I drop the kids off, workout, shower, eat breakfast, then Ollie and I head out to the run. And most days it is great. Often the same small group of older women are there who know each other and some of the dog walkers. There's another guy who's dog is really mellow. And there's usually a mix of other dogs and people including us.
Ollie plays really well (I cannot believe I am writing this like he's one of my kids or something) with the one of the older woman's dogs, a shaggy black and white guy, very sweet. He also likes a brown dog who comes with a dog walker. Otherwise he usually finds some dog with similar energy and does that whole dog playtime thing. If you've never seen dogs play it's kind of like little boys wrestling -- with teeth. They are playing hard, tackling each other, rolling on the ground but it's all good fun. What is disarming with dogs are those teeth, sharp and gleaming and kind of always right there in the middle of things. Similar to when little boys play karate or ninja or something. They are kicking and chopping and well it all looks like someone could get hurt any second. Yet they claim they are playing and no one is getting hurt. It's hard to know, being a girl who only wrestled occasionally when I was young, where that line really is. So you put your faith in the boys that they intuitively know where the line is and you hope to get some clue that maybe you should step in before someone gets hurt.
It's the same with the dogs only none of us were dogs when we were young - at least one person in most families was once a boy. So it's hard to know, especially as a new owner where that line really is -- it all looks a little like it could turn in to blood shed at a moment's notice. And dogs, as Cesar Millan often reminds us, are pack animals so if something starts getting crazy between a couple of them the others seem to sense it and the next thing you know there's a group after one dog and we the humans can only try our best to break it all up. So far we've been lucky. Ollie has only had two incidents at the run where he was that dog who managed to get on the wrong side of the de facto pack leader. But all those times the owners of the other dogs stepped in along side me to break things up and restore our tenuous grasp on order. You know, like it takes a village to raise a kid, all the grown ups work together to help socialize kids on the playground. Same kind of thing, dog owners work together to make sure the beasts behave. But then there are those times you get the parent or the nanny who just doesn't want to deal with their "boisterous" child or maybe the adult is not the most well-behaved adult who ever entered a playground. So the whole playground crowd sort of begins to steer clear of that team.
Well, yesterday was like that in the dog run. We went a little later than usual - first mistake. My dog was a little extra hyper from our tardy arrival, then ornery dog showed up. He was on the prowl for someone to get after, growling and nosing around indiscriminately. Well, my dear dog is one of those friendly-to-a-fault kind of guys and he's a puppy. So who do you think got singled out? And before I knew it five dogs were chasing him and nipping at him. He was on the ground curled up. Honestly, I've seen this happen before at the dog run but usually the other dog owners generally step in and help break it up. Like in the playground when some kid is treating everyone badly. Not so much yesterday. No one even got up from the benches. And well, the mean dog's owner was certainly not making himself evident.
It reminded me of the time when my daughter was two and some little kid was throwing sand at everyone. All the grownups kept telling him no. But there seemed to be no grownup with him. Ultimately it escalated to throwing toys and still no one was in charge of this boy. Finally, when the sand box cleared the boy ran off to find his grown up. She was clear across the park unable even to see the sand. That's what this dog owner was like - nowhere to be seen. Well, in the end it was too much for my dog, so I got him out, all the while batting with my bag at the dogs who were still after him.
Finally, as I was attaching his leash, the mean dog's owner reveals himself by praising his dog!! "Good girl, good girl," he's telling her as they are leaving. I could have boiled a kettle with how pissed I was. It's like that dad in the playground who winks at his kid, all proud papa like after he's just stolen three toys and injured a baby.
The whole incident made we wonder why I ever decided a dog was a good idea. I was so grateful when I was finally done with playground politics - only to be thrown back in - in the canine world. And, dogs, of course, never really outgrow the playground! I must be crazy!!
This is an original post for NYC Moms Blog.
Jessica Ciosek lives with her family and their dog in Soho.
dogs, dog ownership, dog runs, playgrounds, playground politics, Jessica Ciosek, Jess Ciosek, NYC Moms Blog
Comments
Great post! For us the dog park came before the playground, and now the dog park outings are delegated to the dog walker. I miss the old days where dogs were allowed in the children playground, as I've learned that toddlers are a bit of a liability in the dig run.
