Dog Park Drama!

Argh, dammit.

I just had another run-in with the chocolate lab's owners at the dog park. I think I posted about it this fall, but in case I didn't:

Lady comes in with a large but very young chocolate lab puppy. The puppy is eager to meet the other dogs at first, but it's extremely timid and skittish. It becomes easily overwhelmed and squeals in fear during normal rambunctious puppy play.

Every time this happens, the lady rushes to her puppy in a panic, wraps it up in her arms, and comforts it in a shrill voice. "It's okay! It's okaaaaay!" and so on. The other dog approaches again, and the lady shooes it away because she is now convinced it's a vicious bully for picking on her Fido. She takes special care to swat at my dog, probably because "he's wearing a muzzle" (read: Gentle Leader headcollar). He must be bad news, right?

This act happens over and over again with the various dogs at the park. By the time the lady takes her puppy out of the park, it has been transformed into a shaking, cowering wreck. It cringes and runs to her for protection whenever another dog comes within ten feet of it. Its body language is screaming "get me out of here." The hysterical bitch has trained her puppy to be terrified of other dogs.

A couple of months later, the same lady comes back with the same puppy. It has grown quite a bit. It's still trying to play with the other dogs, but the damage has been done to its spirit. The lady continues to intervene and rescue her dog at every sign of discomfort, and it has taken to yelping in fear at the slightest physical contact.

Yet again the lady singles my dog out as being out of control, and I can see her repeatedly fretting over their extremely normal play and shooing the Captain away.

That brings us to today.

This time it isn't the lady, but a big guy in a parka. I'm guessing he's the lady's husband. The dog is now enormous, and seems to know it. The minute I see them, I groan. The lab has caused drama every time it shows up, and I have a bad feeling things are only going to get worse.

It will play normally with a single dog and for short burst, but if more than one dog approaches, it immediately goes into an aggressive stance and bares its teeth and makes as if to bite the other dogs. Its body language is still screaming "GET ME OUT OF HERE" but now it's big enough to be dangerous to whoever it finally loses its temper with.

Well, now the Captain has decided the lab is fun times. They get to playing and all is well. Running around, no big whoop. Then the Captain starts nipping at the other dog's butt.

This nipping is an annoying stage he seems to be going through. He picked it up from roughhousing and hasn't quite figured out that it's not appropriate to pester other dogs who aren't into puppy-wrestling, plus he's got those single-minded Pointer instincts that cause him to sometimes tune me out when he's really focused on something.

I put his little zappy collar on him for just this eventuality. If he gets fixated on some dog that doesn't want to play, I hit the little button that increases the radius of the signal, and walk up to him and tell him "leave it." He'll get beeped and run off with the distinct impression that nipping the unwilling is a good way to get mysterious punishment rained down on him from the sky. No muss, no fuss, and it only takes one beep to teach him that harassing that particular dog is bad.

Our trainer was actually doubtful that this behavior is even a problem, but I'd rather teach him not to nip than have him escalate and become the kind of nuisance that makes the other owners take their dogs home. Plus, the little fucker needs to learn to leave it when I say leave it.

So yeah, Captain is nipping and the chocolate lab goes into its spazz mode, yelping and showing teeth. Right around then, the lab's handler starts flipping the fuck out. I don't know where the lady learned her dog handling from, but this guy got a double dose. He starts yelling at me.

"Your dog is ACTUALLY BITING!"

"No, he just plays rough sometimes. Dogs play rough."

"YOU NEED TO CONTROL HIM. HE'S ATTACKING MY DOG."

"Uh, no, he's really, really not. Calm down." The worst thing is that the guy obviously has no idea that dogs take their behavior cues from us. I personally wouldn't throw a big old bitch-fit in the middle of a dog park unless I was ready for my dog to come to my rescue and tear whoever he thinks is bothering me to shreds.

Meanwhile my dog has begun running around his dog, happily nipping at its flanks and having a fine old time in general, and his dog is baring its teeth and yelping. I won't allow my dog to harass somebody else's dog, and this qualifies as a situation I would absolutely intervene. Still, a child could tell that all the danger was in that poor mixed-up lab's head.

I'm already taking off my bag and fishing for the little gizmo that activates the zap collar. I pull it out and turn it on. Through all of this, the guy is snarling at me to "CONTROL YOUR DOG! YOU NEED TO CONTROL YOUR DOG!"

For whatever reason, the zappy thing doeesn't work (probably the cold). So I pick up a stick and throw it. And my dog, that vicious killing machine who cannot be diverted from his goal of ripping the chocolate lab to pieces, goes "OOH! A STICK!" and runs off after it. Problem solved, without recurrence.

I look back about 30 seconds later, and the same thing is happening with the lab and a sweet little cattle dog mix. The lab is freaking out, the cattle dog is nipping, only no one is getting yelled at to control their dog.

Next time I see that chocolate lab, I'm going to take the owner aside. They're teaching that dog to become a fear-biting nervous wreck and that is not okay. At the very least, the dog is a threat to the other animals and probably shouldn't be subjected to the chaotic environment until he's been socialized with other dogs.

I'm being practical and handling the Captain's rough play stage on my own, but that lab is a fucking time bomb and he gets worse every time I see him. The owner turning it into a bullying drama with their pet as the helpless victim and themselves as supportive leaders is only making things worse.

By the time I convinced myself to stand up to him and face whatever argument would undoubtedly ensue (we're so protective of our pets), he was already out the gate. Next time I see them, I vowed, I won't even wait for there to be a problem before I speak up.

Oh yeah, and for sanity check purposes I talked to another handler who was there during the non-fight. She said the lab was obviously causing the disturbance, which made me feel better. She was actually surprised when I told her why the guy was pissed at me.

Funnily enough, a few minutes later the Captain DID get into a fight. A boxer in a winter coat kept coming up and jumping him, and for whatever reason they ended up in a snarling ball of angst. And you know what? The owner and I quietly waded in and separated our beasties, exchanging pleasantries. "Ah well, looks like these two don't get along too well." And that was that.

I need to get a proper training collar, though. Something with a tone-only setting that can be activated from more than 12 feet away.