Law of the Jungle

A couple of incidents at the dog park gave me some food for thought regarding Pappy's place in the dog pecking order. The first was that Jack had a scary fight with a creepy Akita. He was uninjured, but upset. Jack's pretty unflappable-- his favorite game at the dog park is "Jumping Jack" where five dogs simultaneously attack him. Later that afternoon he was pretty shaken, and only wanted to play with the little dogs at the dog park; some R&R amongst the Lilliputians.

The second incident involved Truman playing with a huge Lab. Truman is no wuss, in fact his owner worries that he can be aggressive at times. But he was alternately running around with this Lab, then rolling over in abject submission as the Lab sniffed around his nethers at great length. Truman's owner had never seen this before, and was aghast that her dashing dog had been so totally unmanned.

So, in considering these two situations, I kind of ponder how Pappy fits into dog society. Apart from the time that Joy, a stocky Boxer, pinned a surprised Pappy on his back and sprawled on top of him, he's never demonstrated anything resembling belly-up submissive behavior to dominant dogs. He's no strutting he-dog, he just somehow sidesteps the really dominant ones. As for aggression, he generally stays out of trouble despite all of his rough-housing. Whenever there is a fight he makes a bee-line right towards it, but he never ends up in the middle. I certainly don't need a tough guy, so it's okay with me the other dogs don't take him too seriously and he stays out of trouble. It's fine if he is the Barney Fife of the dog world.