St. Thomas Dog Blog

I just read some Facebook comments about our dog park.  They were posted over the past several months.  Most were complaints by parents about their children being told to behave themselves at the dog park.  They make me wonder whose park is it anyway?  I believe it’s the dogs’ park.  There are a lot of parks for children in St. Thomas.

At children’s playgrounds, and all other parks for that matter, dogs are not supposed to run free.  It doesn’t matter if your Scruffy absolutely adores children and loves loves loves to play with them, you are breaking the law if Scruffy joins in the children’s play.

Scruffy has the right to be in the park, but the children’s rights to play take precedence over his.  For that matter, in a children’s playground, the rights of the children to play take precedence over yours as an adult.  I don’t know if it would break a bylaw, but it certainly wouldn’t be acceptable for an adult to push past a child to get on the slide or swings.

So at a dog park, the dogs have prior rights.  Some dogs like to play with kids, some don’t.  Many dogs think running children are good to chase.  So the best way to socialize your kids around dogs in a dog park is to teach them to stay quiet, to pay attention to dog language and to adults who are telling them something about the dog.  The rules are posted, and they were developed with the safety of your child and your dog in mind.

I’ve been to the London dog parks.  I’ve never seen children running and I’ve never seen anyone playing fetch with their dog.  I have seen dogs, adults and children walking around paths.  I’ve seen people standing around talking, drinking coffee and smoking while watching their dogs play.  I’ve seen kids skylarking with their own dogs in open spaces.  I’ve had kids ask if they could pet my dogs.   I’ve also seen the rules in London dog parks – no children playing, no throwing sticks or toys.

We don’t have a very large dog park, and we don’t have a lot of open space.  We’ve got hills and woods.  It can get pretty cramped with a lot of people and dogs there.  It can also be hard to keep your eye on your dogs and kids if they are in the woods or behind trees.  So it’s even more important, I think, for vigilance.

No one is saying your children should be on leashes.  But if you can’t control them, well, whatever works!  Two children have been taken from the park by ambulance after they injured themselves falling down the hill.  That’s the hill that the committee “Nazis” tell your kids to stay off of.  They don’t want to see them hurt.  For myself, I don’t care what your kids do as long as it doesn’t infringe on me or my dogs.  Stupid is as stupid does, like Forrest Gump’s mama says.  If you’re willing to risk broken bones, it’s your right.

The London Dog Park rules are from LDOA’s website.  They are also on signs in the parks.  There’s an explanation of “why”  for the 3 rules most often broken. Those include kids in the parks and bringing in food & toys.  Come back next week for Part II – The “Grown-ups” or ‘why I no longer go to the park.”