Confession Time- I’m an Idiot

Early last month, Kristine over at Rescued Insanity confessed that she had turned into one of the dog owners that bugs her the most- an MDIF, also known as one of those people who call out “Don’t worry, my dog is friendly”. Kristine was mortified that those words ever left her mouth. Luckily, the encounter turned out quite happily, and we were all reminded, through Kristine’s misadventure, that none of us are perfect. And isn’t one of the hallmarks of adulthood to be able to learn from other people’s mistakes?

Apparently, not for us.

While I haven’t written about it before, I have two major pet peeves when it comes to the dog park. The first is the people who believe that because they are going to an off leash area, their dog doesn’t need to be leashed at all. This bothers me even at the park that is only an off leash park. It freaks me out to have loose dogs in the parking lot. But it bugs me even more at the off leash area that is in the heart of another park. We have stopped walking by the children’s play area and instead walk down lovely wooded trails to get to the off leash area, but there are signs everywhere stating that on the paths, dogs must be on leash. And it drives me crazy to see people ignoring those signs. Even when the dogs are very well behaved, and walking just as close to their people as they would be on leash, well, they are still flaunting the rules.

Now, honestly, I’m not likely to ever find myself breaking the rule, but mostly because my dogs are honestly not well enough behaved to stick with us on a path through woods without a leash. They just aren’t.

However, my second pet peeve, also comes from the off leash area in the midst of the park. Right next to it is this very large grassy expanse, called the reservoir. I’m pretty certain it’s an area that nothing can be built on because it’s one of those places where a while bunch of the massive power lines are buried under the ground- or something like that. It’s a giant grassy area with nothing. And it’s right next to the off leash area that has almost no grass. So despite the signs everywhere that say very frankly that it is not part of the off leash area and that dogs must be on leash there, people love to let their dogs off leash there. In fact, I’ve seen people leave the off leash area to go over there. Every time I see people walk up to the opening in that fence and let their dog off leash, I want to point out the sign RIGHT THERE that says dogs must be on leash.

Well, on Friday, we let the dogs off leash in the grassy expanse. I’m going to defend us here, but the truth is, there really isn’t a defense. We came for the dog park. The dog park was closed. Now there had been signs on the gate we usually enter by that said the park would be closed- last week. Well, apparently it needed to be closed again, and they didn’t bother to update the signs on the less used entrances.

Still, the small dog area was supposed to remain open, so we headed up there. Except that this time, the construction workers didn’t pay attention and locked the outside airlock gate, instead of the inside one, and that prevented us from getting to the small dog area.

So here we are with our dogs. They know they’re at the dog park. They know they’re supposed to get to run around off leash. And there’s that large grassy expanse, with lots of other people who were flummoxed by the park closure, letting their dogs run off leash.

See the vast expanse of green beyond the fence, and the hints of dogs there, yeah, that’s the place.

So we did it. We walked in there, and we let Larry and June off leash. And a little while later, C felt bad for Howie, and let him off leash.

One thing led to another, and before we knew it, the dogs were out of the grassy area. Howie headed down a platform that looks out over a ravine, where C was able to recapture him. Larry and June headed into a small residential area. Larry, when he realized we weren’t right there, came looking for us, and we managed to get a leash on him. Junebug just kept happily following her nose. I had to chase her through someone’s yard (chase happens to be one of her favorite games to play off leash), before she decided that the treat in my hand was more interesting than smelling their fence.

All’s well that ends well, and all of that. Except that we know better. I know better. I hate when people let their dogs off leash in an on leash area (especially when it’s right next to a lovely off leash area).

The off leash area being closed wasn’t an excuse. The dogs being hyped up wasn’t an excuse. We could have just walked them through the trail area, letting them smell. We could have walked them through the grassy area and around the park, on leash. Sure they wouldn’t have had as much fun, but we wouldn’t have had near heart attacks.

It’s our job to be the smart ones. To know that no matter how good June’s recall is in this moment, that it goes away the second an interesting scent comes along, that Howie will sometimes just pick a direction (or someone else to follow) and go. Our dogs behaved the way they behave. We behaved in a way we normally don’t, and know we shouldn’t. But if something had gone wrong, it’s the dogs who would have paid for it.

So I’m asking you, if you didn’t learn from Kristine’s experience, please learn from mine. We really only need a couple of us doing idiotic things.