I took Kentucky and Derby to the dog park for the first time today. I was a little worried 'Tucky wouldn't act like a lady, but they both did wonderfully.
Derby spent the first hour marking every tree, park bench, trash can, fence post, etc. in sight. I don't think he even realized there were other dogs there until he ran out of pee.
'Tucky was, at first, more interested in getting people to pet her and tell her how pretty she was than playing with the other dogs.
Eventually, though, they both met some other dogs, very politely. They didn't wrestle or chase anyone really, but were both really behaved. Derby stuck pretty close to me, unless he was leaving p-mail all over, but whenever a big group of dogs started organizing, 'Tucky had to run over and be right in the middle of it.
All of the dogs were very well-mannered for the most part. One woman had a gorgeous pit bull that she would let wander far from her. The dog didn't have a mean bone in his body, but totally didn't understand how big and heavy he was and he wanted to play with all the little dogs. Several times, I had to grab this dogs harness while it tried to lunge at a little dog (not mean-like, just over-friendly) or when someone was holding their little dog out of its way but the pit kept jumping up to get closer to the little dog. The owner would casually stroll across from the other side of the park saying "leave it, leave it" or "I'm coming" while I'm holding the dog so it doesn't squash some poor little rat terrier.
But that was the only problem I saw. There were two gorgeous great danes there - Hamlet and Diesel. Hamlet was GINORMOUS, but camera shy. Diesel desperately wanted to play with K&D, but they weren't quite sure what to do with a dog that big.
I took lots of pictures, but forgot to put my memory card in before I left and, of course, my cord to download the pics to my computer is back in Louisiana. I'll see what I can do to share those with you sooner than later.
The dogs are exhausted now and sacked out on the kitchen floor (YAY!!)
