ParkParkParkParkPark

My nemesis - finding a Suitable Park nearby to play in!

We have found a small neighborhood park about two blocks away that is perfect for our early morning (pre-Animal Control Patrol) play, but as it's not a dog park, I wouldn't take my dogs there to run in the afternoons or anything. It's perfect for pre-work romps though. Every morning we are joined by Connor the Cattle Dog, who shrieks like a banshee and usually gets the ball first.

After work, there's just nowhere to go. Hole Digging Park has now been renamed POOPY PARK. I will spare you the gory details but let's just say that Canada Geese + puddles + thirsty dogs = The Food Lady spending a lot of time scrubbing liquid poo off her brand new area rugs. So Poopy Park is OUT!

Yesterday we tried Monkey Tree Park again. There were lots of dogs there, which was a good sign. However, within 45 seconds of arriving Mr. Woo got pounced on by what was, without a doubt, the absolute *worst* behaved dog I have ever seen, owned by the most ineffectual woman I have ever had the displeasure of not meeting (for fear I would verbally slug her). Her dog invited Woo to play and then pinned all 25lbs of him down with her 60+ lb body and ripped out chunks of his hair. I had to haul the dog off him bodily as his screams were blissfully ignored. He was soaking wet everywhere when I freed him ... and he was MAD!

The dog then stole Tweed's ball and proceeded to play a long and complicated game of keep-away with it, which I (not the owner, mind) finally thwarted by pretending to have an invisible cookie.

I lay all my dogs down on the grass and pointedly stood very still, and after a good 4 minutes of calling the dog's name over and over and over and over and over and over again, the woman finally began walking away and after eating the contents ... wait for it ... of our poopy bag (GAG) the dog finally, reluctantly, followed her owner away. Good grief! Older, timid ladies of the world ... please, adopt small elderly dogs. Not large, gross, hard headed labshepherdpitmutt puppies!

Which left us with the second worst behaved dog in the world, the Malinois. For at least 10 minutes, and I'm not exaggerating, the Malinois trotted in a big neurotic circle with the clear intention of beating any of my dogs to the ball if I were stupid enough to throw it. I tried the lay-my-dogs-down hint again, and the owner just stood there, speaking softly to the Mal in a language I don't understand. At first I thought he was incredibly obtuse, but after a while I realized he was just another owner whose dog has no recall command, and it wasn't that he was ignoring his dog - rather, his dog was ignoring him. He could not call him, nor could he catch him.

People please - if your dog does not have some semblance of a recall, keep him on a leash until he does!

I finally stomped off in a huff and found a corner of the park where there were no ball stealing Malinois or poop eating mutts, but by then our outing had kinda been soured ... I drove all the way to Queen Elizabeth Park for this?

So today, we went back to Doggie Death Park.


The super tall grasses are mostly gone. I don't think they've been mowed, they have just died off as Autumn has progressed. So it's not quite the poopy landmine it was the last time we were there, but still tall enough to get some advert-esque dogs-bounding-through-tall-grass shots.



So it was good for everyone. Piper and Mr. Woo got to play Fifa (tm):

and Tweed got to play with a regular ball (which we didn't lose).

There weren't too many other dogs there, although we did run into this extremely happy coffee table ... errr, Lab.

He wanted to be friends with Wootie, but after Monkey Tree Park, Woo was skeptical:

He just wanted to play some ball

While Tweed kept watch

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The Fifa (tm) Faces of Woo:

Are you going to kick that?

Don't look at Piper, look at me. I'm cuter, and oranger.

What do you mean by "the game is over, stop staring at me, we're going home Mr. Woo," exactly?
(comes right before BARKSCREAMBARKSCREAMBARKSCREAM)

If he wasn't so cute, he might be considered a real bossy boots pain in the rear!

But you have to admit, he's really cute.