The Dog Park
July 29th 2007
I have been visiting this interesting place that has lots of dogs around. Most of the time there are many interesting, fun friends to play with.
Sometimes though, there are some dogs that really don’t want to interact with me.
I really don’t understand this.
Everyone should love to play with a Shiba, especially a Shiba like me!
I try to tell them this, but sometimes they get annoyed and try to tell me to get lost. But I keep trying.
I don’t want them to lose out on this golden Shiba opportunity.
Today, there was another Shiba at the park. He looked like me but he was very small so I was very curious. At first he was in the small dog area but then he came over to where I was, presumably to pay homage to me. After all, I am bigger and better.
I went over to greet him, but the little Shiba got all snarky with me, growled at me, and showed teeth. I suppose since he is so small, he might be a bit fearful of my awesome aspect.
I went over more slowly and tried to greet him again. He got all snarky again and Den Female and Pungent One came over and stopped me. This happened a few more times and I decided to give the little Shiba some alone time before my next approach.
After about 15 minutes, I figured the little one had probably calmed down, so I put on my best face and went over to introduce myself. The little punk actually had the audacity to come at me with teeth bared. To calm him down I simply sat on him.
I thought I handled it pretty well and with minimal violence but then all hell suddenly broke loose. The 2-legs that belonged to little Shiba came charging over, shouting and wildly waving their arms. One of them actually dared to lay hands on my royal body.
I was shocked at his stupid behavior.
Lucky for him, Pungent One came over and stopped his stupidity before I could unleash my ninja Shiba moves.
Runty’s follower walked away but kept on yipping. At that point, we thought it best to leave little Runty and his sidekicks to their yipping and yapping.
Shiba Wisdom
If a little dog is uncomfortable being with larger dogs, it is best to keep him in the small dog area where he can have more fun.
Never grab an unknown dog, especially a Shiba, unless you want to get bitten – ROAR!
Ziva’s just “sort of” dominate–she’s the alpha dog when she feels like it. She defers to my mother-in-law’s ancient Boston Terrier, not happily, but she does. She behaves more or less as an equal with the younger Boston, and pretty much alphas my neighbor’s enormous lab mix and our cat. She’s very social on leash–for about 5 minutes and then she’s over it. She will air-butt and neck-pin when playing with the cat, and if the cat gets vocal or starts picking a fight, she will just walk up on Liz (the cat), holding her head up above her reach, and very calmly just sit down on her. I think it’s a really novel and smart way to avoid a fight and proclaim vast superiority–I’m surprised Runty’s owner didn’t just laugh–which is what I would have done.
Yeah I thought the sitting thing was pretty funny as well, and a good way to handle conflicts. However, the guy didn’t like his dog being sat on. He probably felt that it reflected badly on their combined male macho power. I suppose I can understand some of that; some people see their dog as an extension of themselves, so dominating their dog is like dominating them.
His wife just picked up Runty, made coo-ing noises to him, and didn’t say anything to anybody.
Their daughter kept apologizing to us. She seemed really stressed out so we talked to her some and told her everything was ok, and there was no need to be sorry. Kindda felt bad for her, but we decided the best thing to do was to leave.
What is it with Shibas and the sitting thing? I’ve never observed this in any of my other dogs (mixed or pure breeds, either one), but Ziva often subdues the cat this way–no violence, just a sit down (with lots of accompanying complaining by the cat) Does Shania do that or just Sephy?
Wow that is interesting that Ziva does that too. Shania does not do that. She is more of a submissive dog so whenever there are any conflicts she rolls over to show that she is not a threat. Nowadays I am careful to screen the dogs she meets coz I don’t want her to have bad experiences with other dogs.
What dog park do you go to?
I used to take my Shiba to enclosed dog parks in the area. I went to about 5 different ones to try them out and then finally settled on one that seemed to have a good mix of dogs, and also had responsible owners. However, the nature of enclosed parks is such that all it takes is one anti-social dog, and accidents could occur. Also, some people would bring their kids and let them run all over the place which is very dangerous.
Finally I decided to stop taking Sephy to enclosed parks. We now only go to hiking parks which are a lot better because the owners usually stay close to their dogs and hiking parks are huge. The environment in a hiking park is a lot more structured and appropriate for Sephy. He was picking up a lot of bad habits in the enclosed parks.