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Originally Posted by rottcrazed  Personally, if your pup is the nicest dog at that park, the park sounds dangerous and should be avoided.
I despise dog parks because unless you have complete control over your own dog and completely trust them NOT to react (which is truly unfair to a well-trained dog to ask them to endure the wrath of poorly trained/mannered dogs), they are a place where most people just let their out of control dogs who can't be walked on a leash for lack of training, run wild and free and most people don't know their dogs (or canine behavior for that matter) well enough to use dog parks the way they were intended in the first place. |
Dog parks sound awful across the pond. Our local off leash park is huge and in the 7+ years I've been going there I've never seen an altercation between dogs. Often there are no other dogs there or they're in a far flung section of the park and we don't meet eachother. There are walking tracks through natural bushland as well as two very large grassed ovals.
It's not a dog park as such, it is an open unfenced public park with a childrens playground, tennis courts and a bike track. Being so large there's room for everyone. People are polite and we leash our dogs if a new dog appears so they can meet in controlled circumstances. If all is well we let them play off leash.
There are rules that only well behaved dogs under control are allowed off leash. The Rangers, who are our equivalent of Animal Control, patrol the park several times a day and anyone doing the wrong thing will get a ticket and told not to come back to the park...or else!!
The Rangers often bring their own dogs to the park for a play with other dogs.
My Sophie used to have a play date twice a week there with the Ranger's GSD.