today at the dog park

[smy0527]

With out writing a book, today at the park my couch potato Sophie broke up a fight between a shepard and a rottie by coming out of no where and barreling into the agressor, knocking her out of the way and givng the owners enough time to get control of the dogs. The regulars at the prk thought Sophie was a hero, me, not so much and not sure I liked the behavior. Has anyone else experienced this? The agressor was new, the other dog was a regular like us.

 

[Thule's Mom]

Oh my yes! Thule is really bad for it (or good, depending on perspective I suppose) but I was always afraid she'd get hurt. We don't go to the dog park now, not just because of that, she had surgery.. but she wasn't so much into the 'playing' aspect of the park anymore, as much as nannying the other dogs.

 

[Sound Bay Newfs]

That does sound out of character for Sophie, Sandy. She is lucky she did not get caught in the middle of it and the other owners were responsible enough to step in. I am seeing more and more of this behavior at the parks and it does concern me.

 

[Windancer]

I would say it is typical for a newf defending her friend from a new commer..

 

[Garden_girl]

Murphy used to do the same thing (just push himself in between two dogs fighting), so much so, that he earned the nickname of dog park sheriff. This behavior is one of the many reasons I no longer take my dogs to dog parks.

While I think it's very valiant behavior, can you imagine if one of the fighting dogs decided to charge my dog? It very possibly would end up being MY dog's fault, the big black dog (as if dogs with size should know better ).

 

[heather pluciennik]

Morgan gets bit enough without going to the dog parks. Just today she got nipped on the nose by a poodle down the road. I didn't know they could squeeze their heads that far past the slots in the fence. Totally my fault. We did make sure they had their shots up to date.
Afterwords my hubby tells me that another neighbors dog got hurt before I showed up. A little notice would have been nice.

 

[BoundlessNewfs]

Our Lucy plays referee with our cats, all the time. If two of them are playing too rough, or one of them growls or hisses, Lucy shoots out of nowhere, stomping around the cats to scatter them.

I always thought it was her landseer coloring that made her think she was a referee.

 

[NewfDad]

Yup, we call it Katala's lifeguard routine. She especially does it when tha dogs different sizes

 

[BLCOLE]

Interesting. Vinnie did this at the dog park as well. Along with a Harlequin Dane buddy of his... It seems like the giant breed dogs are the police at my local park...

 

[baloobear2]

Garden Girl--New Sheriff in town

Garden girl: So you have a Sheriff in your house too;D Baloo could not stand it when another dog bullied another dog that was not able to fend for themselves. He had this way of walking up and standing parallel to them waited to see if they took the warning and if not pushed the offender out of the way and herded them over to the fence like it was a time out... Weird thing was after awhile he would even attempt to play with that dog and most times the dog did...Even though the owners appreciated him watching and intervening My husband started using the leave it command and really rewarded him with lots of praise and treats. It took a long time for him to totally get this out of his system. But he still worries about the little ones being over run by the big boys and will try to distract them...forever a work in progress? We don't go as much any more

 

[YorkvilleNewfie]

I haven't experienced this with Mila, but I can totally see why you wouldn't be a big fan of this becoming part of Sophie's dog park repertoire! Glad that it ended well!