How this started
A few years before, the city had opened up most of their parks for dogs. Many people then walked their dogs on leash, either through the grass playing field, or on the track around it. At first, there were only three dogs who ran in the park off-leash. These guys were all well behaved, and enjoyed either playing or just meandering around the grass field, taking in all the assorted smells they could find.
Eventually, a few other people saw how well they behaved, and decided to try it with their dogs. Many of these were young ones, just learning. Yup, occasionally there would be a wild chase, as a dog saw something interesting at the other end of the field, but we knew which ones to watch for that, and there were only a very few.
For the most part, all the dogs, people, and kids formed an area that all the dogs stuck near. As is typical, the dogs would often break down into several play groups, and stick together. Over time, more and more people walking around the park took notice, and decided to give it a try. The group size grew into several dozen dogs. Previously, only a very few of them had known each other, and only a few had been in a dog park.
Besides little socialization, few of these dogs had much previous training, and no real attempt was made on that here. The emphasis was on having fun while learning some social skills, and they learned how to meet many other dogs and people.
This continued through the summer, with long days and people coming after work. As the days became shorter, the numbers dropped, until only a few continued. It’s often curious to see how things sometime align, but other times just don’t. The next several years showed only a very few people returning with their dogs, and it didn’t build up again. We do still have a few groups of 3-4 dogs who come out together, and maybe one day it will happen again.
While the Stars were Aligned…
Knowing that things like this tend to ebb and fade, I took a few videos to capture the activity. This has clips spanning a few dozen sessions, to cover most of the dogs there.
Then a four month old pup joined. She was welcomed and they worked on teaching her how to play.
With the next one titled as Kids Will Play. The dark shepherd was a young pup just learning.
In the first video, you may notice my older guy sort of just laying around in the middle and watching all the kids. Well, he used to run around like the kids when he was younger, but now goes for some other activities.
Bandi and his car
I brought the car to a few of the socials, and about a half-dozen dogs joined Bandi in chasing it. However, I couldn’t control both the car and the video camera at the same time, so no clips there.