You wanna go?Let’s go.

Three times in a row, we went to the dog park and Larry had issues. All three times, I would argue it wasn’t his fault, but there was a pattern there, and it was starting to worry me. It helped when the third time he had an issue, another (uninvolved) owner talked to us and said that it really was the other dog’s fault. Larry was one of four dogs that dog had an issue with, and his owner just wasn’t willing to be in control of him. (The dog was a young malamute and was definitely more in control of his person than she was of him.)

Still, the three times in a row thing made me think about why Larry has issues and June doesn’t. I figured it out, and it means that we’ll always have to keep an eye on Larry, but I think I can live with that.

Here’s what I think is going on:

June is a submissive dog. She loves to play and chase, but if things start to escalate, she wants no part of it. She backs down instantly, says I’m sorry in doggy speak, and just tries to get away. In fact, it confuses and upsets her when a dog doesn’t let her just run away. (We had this with a ball aggressive dog, and she spent the next 10 minutes with her tail tucked between her legs.)

Larry is not a submissive dog. Larry is a stereotypical terrier. When a situation starts to escalate, he doesn’t back down and apologize, he says “You wanna go? Let’s go.” He doesn’t start anything, but he’s determined to finish it. So, instead of de-escalating the situation (as Junebug does) he keeps it at the higher level, making it that much easier for the situation to keep getting worse.

After a few more times at the dog park with no issues, and watching him carefully, I remain confident that he doesn’t start anything. I just have to know that he won’t back down.

As a side note: We never really had this with Moree and Smokey. Moree didn’t actually care about socializing at the dog park. He just wanted to run. And if it seemed like Smokey was getting too interested in heading over to see what those other dogs were going on about, Moree just herded him right back toward us.