The Story So Far: about two years ago, we adopted a retired
seeing eye dog, a German Shepherd Dog named Tajji. She had significant
reactivity to other dogs when on a leash, which we have been steadily working
on with the help of positive techniques trainer Sandi Pensinger of Living WithDogs. Tajji has made enormous progress in learning a new skill set, including
making eye contact with her handler and playing fetch. She is much better at
greeting people politely and is unusually gregarious for her (notoriously
aloof) breed.
The last few months have brought a couple of new
developments to her life. We had heard from her previous owners that she
enjoyed dog parks, which did not fit with what we observed in her on-leash
behavior. A couple of incidents in which we watched her interact with other
dogs off-leash convinced us that she has excellent bite inhibition and
not-so-bad social skills with other dogs. So we decided to give it a try. On
her first visit, upon leaving her car crate, she went into her usual barking
and lunging routine, but as soon as we approached the gate, she quieted down.
You could see the memories dropping into place.
We’d heard horror stories about dog parks, with
inappropriate behavior on the part of both dogs and owners, so we watched Tajji
carefully. This particular dog park is quite generous in size, divided into
areas for small and large dogs, with water bowls and chairs for owners to sit.
There’s a small “airlock” fenced area between the parking lot and the gates to
the two sides. The surface is mostly wood chips and the area is kept quite
clean (except for assorted tennis balls, rope pull toys, and an occasional
stick).
