B-More Dog Friendly

I consider myself a pretty lucky dog owner. In my years of living with man’s best friend (but not man’s best cook, that’s why I loves me some SueSue) I’ve been fortunate enough to live near dog parks. I used to have access to a football field sized caged in area with grass,sand and trees for dogs to run unleashed and play.

Last night I was watching the news and heard about Baltimore’s lack of dog parks. There’s one in Canton…Uh…are there anymore? If not then that’s too bad. To bad for our dogs. I have one just down the street from me. Actually it’s the Hopkins lacrosse practice field but it unofficially doubles as a dog park as long as we keep it clean.

Dog parks can be multi-purpose in that they give dogs their much needed exercise, they allow dogs to socialize with other dogs and they let dog owners in the community get together.
Sometimes people can be anti-social but dog parks can often act as a good ice breaker. Dog owners already have one thing in common: they have dogs. It is not unusual to frequent a dog park and know the dogs’names but not their owners but that’s ok because basically it’s the dogs who are bringing their owners out. We become the pets for the duration of the park visit.

Another big perk that a dog park offers is that it allows dogs to reestablish the pack.
There could be 2-20 dogs at a park and if you allow them enough time and freedom they will establish their pack order. Unless they’re trained to fight they rarely do. They do, however, mount eachother if they want to challenge or establish the order and this drives some owners nuts. I say leave the dogs alone. They are establishing the pecking order and don’t care if they embarrass you. They didn’t grow up catholic so get off their backs.
And you could learn something new about your dog if you let them play for a while and see how they interact with other dogs without you humans telling them what to do.

I remember being at a cookout where everyone brought their dogs. About every 30 minutes a new dog would show up (like a doggy Royal Rumble) and the pack order was reestablished. All the dog owners at the party knew about pack animals and pecking order and knew that after the order is established everyone is cool and playtime can continue.

So consider the dogs. Build more dog parks, Baltimore. We should at least have ones in Patterson, Druid Hill and Gwynns Falls. But that would only be a start. The city already has the space.