Pappy's Ugly Secret

I took Pappy and neighbor dog Molly to the dog park Sunday morning, part of the normal drill. All of the lamers who had skipped Saturday morning came up with various excuses. At least two or three had the same story of showing up, finding the dog area empty, and going for a walk in the park instead.

There was a crush at the gate when a newbie couple with a young Golden Retriever showed up, and so I helped get the dogs backed up to let them in. In the melee, Pappy decided, as he sometimes does, to mount the Golden. As I was going to get him off, the woman shrieked "NO!" When I told her it was okay, that he was neutered and I was getting him off, she said "NO IT IS NOT OKAY." Then I told her that maybe off-leash parks were a bad idea for her.

I am a huge prude, and Pappy's mounting is embarrassing for me-- you won't find me mentioning it much here. The Golden owner clearly thought Pappy was doing something terrible to her dog, and that bugs me more. He doesn't do it to a lot of dogs, and he's never "excited" during the process-- he generally seems to expect the dog to turn around and wrestle. One of the benefits of the dog park has been that other more experienced owners have reassured me that it is fairly typical of females as well as males, and encouraged me not to make the fatal error of interpreting the behavior in human terms. Once started with a dog Pappy is a little relentless about going back for a few minutes (he is a terrier), but these owners have given me the space to try and train him to get off on command without getting wiggy at him.

So I spent most of Sunday's visit trying to keep Pappy out of the vicinity of the Golden. Her spouse/boyfriend seemed fairly cool about things and beckoned to Pappy a couple of times, but the woman was too busy shrilling at her dog for playing with other dogs. Eeek, I wish that dog well and I hope I never see them again.