As we touched on in yesterday’s post, Dog Parks can be a great place for your dog to socialize with other dogs and for you to interact with other dog owners in the community. Since we covered what makes a good dog park and how to find one in the last post, today we are going to cover some basic guidelines and etiquette tips once you decide on which park you want you and your pooch to be a member of.

You want to be very cautious and watchful of your dog the first few times you bring him to a park. If you haven’t socialized your dog with others before, you may have no idea how they will react. Some of the nicest dogs with people can be very animal aggressive. Some will be very, very timid. Some will be bullies! Others will just want to have FUN– but fun to them means running their big bodies into other dogs and other people at top speed! It is important to get an understanding of how your dog acts and socialize them accordingly.

Dog park rules vary from park to park. But if you know the rules, and have a well trained dog that listens to you, you will do fine wherever you go. Next time: socialization tips!

It’s time to talk about every dog’s favorite place to play: the Dog Park!

Dog parks are invaluable in getting your dog socialized with other canines. Not only that, but it’s a flat out fun place for them to be once they get used to playing with other pooches. In today’s post we will talk about what makes up a good dog park before getting into specifics through out this week.

The most important aspect and foundation of a good dog park is the community. It is important that every owner who chooses to bring their dog to the park respect the community and make sure they abide by the rules and proper etiquette. Dog park etiquette is a whole other subject we will get into later, but the most important element is to know the rules and follow them! Nobody wants to be known as “that owner” with “that dog” who ruins the entire park experience for everybody!

Check out and talk to people at the dog park before bringing your dog. Make sure you know and remember the rules and are ready to enforce them on your dog. This is a double edged sword– be sure to enforce the rules if you see another owner breaking them. This is important– you don’t have to be hostile or confrontational, but the community is more important than one bad owner. When necessary, contacting the proper authorities to deal with bad owners is something that happens at dog parks.