My wife and I have three dogs. The smallest is a little rat terrier named Terry. Next is Lobo, an adorably cute black Lab mix. Whatever his Labrador-ness is mixed with must be small – he’s full grown, but looks like a three-month-old lab puppy.
And the big guy is Pirate. His mom was a blue heeler. We don’t know what his dad was, but I’m guessing something in the Australian shepherd or cattle dog group. He’s beautiful and brilliant and has an over-developed sense of entitlement.
Now that we’re in CO Springs, we’ve become regulars at a local dog park. It’s very nice – part of Palmer Park, one of the big areas that I believe is taken care of by the Parks & Rec folks. We go just about every afternoon – sometime between 3:30 and 5:30 – and we stay for an hour or more and let the dogs stretch their legs, socialize, and have some fun.
It’s fun for us, too. We’ve met quite a few folks since we’ve been going. Actually, we haven’t really met the people – we’ve met the dogs. “Oh, there’s Winston’s dad!” or “Hey! Sadie’s mom – how are ya?”
The dogs are the main raison d’etre for the park, and I’ve enjoyed watching the way their society works. As the weeks pass, I realize that their sociology is about like human sociology – with more butt-sniffing.
One aspect that I’ve found intriguing involves our big guy, Pirate. He’s close to 60 pounds, so he’s a good-sized dog, but he’s nowhere near the biggest that frequents the park. Still, for whatever reason, a rogue element of the herding instinct that’s buried in his genetic code has decided to manifest itself in his personality. Pirate has decided that he’s the referee.
When new arrivals to the park show up, Pirate stops whatever he’s doing to go welcome them through the gate. If any dogs get a little too rambunctious with their barking or bullying, Pirate runs right up to them and tells them to cut it out. He’s become my little Republican – anytime he sees a couple of dogs having fun, he has to get in the middle of it and stop it. It hasn’t gotten out of hand – he responds fairly quickly to us when we tell him to mind his own business – but I find it completely fascinating.
I wonder what causes that behavior…
Does Pirate believe that pack values will fade away if dogs are allowed to sniff the behinds of whoever they want? Does he think that too much stick-chasing will corrupt the puppy generation? Did some puppy pundit from Fox Terrier News warn him about the terrifying dangers of socialized water bowls?
Who knows… I have a lot of theories about the need to ensure that everyone around us believes what we want them to and does what we want them to, but they’re just theories – and maybe the reasons differ between people and puppies…
Whatever the reason, I’ll keep watching Pirate meddle in the affairs of the canine community, and I’ll keep being amused.
I found the comments!!!