Teach the waggy thing

The other day Patti Jo tookBooker, our Welshie, and his adopted

cousin Danny to the dog park, and as occasionally happens, there was

one dog that attacked another dog while its owner stood by.

Most pups play-fight, of course, but there’s a sound a dog makes

when it’s out to make a puncture which goes beyond sport, and this

one was making that sound, so in a friendly way, Patti Jo suggested

to its owner that maybe he should do something about his pet’s

aggressiveness.

He shrugged and said, “Ahh, it’s just a dominance thing.”

Well, he had her there. It o7isf7 a dominance thing. So is 75%

of the stuff that makes the papers. The question is whether you want

that attitude prevailing.

This has always been the one small cloud over the dog park. It’s

an ideal playground, but now and then it comes with a bully.

It’s actually easier to protect your pup from bullies on the

street. When we meet a new dog on evening walks with Booker we call

out, “Is your dog friendly?” and if the answer is a growl from either

dog or owner we pass them by.

But at the dog park everyone’s in the soup, and if an unleashed

stranger wants to assert his dominance, he just goes ahead and does

it. And if he asserts it on your dog, then you’ve got to go up

against the strange dog and his owner, and the next thing you know

there’s shock and awe all over the place.

It’s particularly irritating for those who’ve gone to the trouble

of training their dogs to be civilized.

My mother-in-law, Carol Reynolds, adopted Danny, and we aren’t

positive about his breeding, but recently received opinion holds that

he’s a Catahoula leopard dog, a breed from Louisiana which has not

yet made the American Kennel Club registry.

We’re told that Catahoula leopard dogs were brought here by

colonial Spaniards to hunt wild boar, and were apparently feral for

awhile. The people who identified him for us seemed to feel that

Danny was an especially handsome example, a kind of Catahoula Brad

Pitt.

Given his heredity, Danny would appear to have all kinds of bully

potential. Yet Carol’s raising a sweetie who threatens no one. And

that’s as it should be, because life in Laguna Beach doesn’t require

ferocity unless you’re in real estate.

I’ll conclude today’s sermon by referring you to the fourth, ninth

and 10th Dog Park Commandments, which you’ll find posted at the

entrance.

They apply to dog but they’re addressed to man, and boiled down

they say lose the dominance thing or get lost yourself. Virtually all

dogs are trainable. The city offers canine kindergarten classes.

Teach them the waggy thing instead.

* SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four

novels.