Plays Well with Others

Oh, what a jolly place is the dog park. A chance to frolic with Misty, Clancy, Lulu, Harvey, and Touch-My-Ball-I-Bite-a-You-Face. Leo and I had spent a peaceful 30 minutes in the small dog corral with Misty, Clancy, their mother, and the chatty transvestite who hung over the fence trading pit-bull-bite stories with me. We agreed, it's usually not the dog, but the owner, who creates a troublesome pet.

Misty and Clancy headed home, so Leo and I shifted over to the general inmate population consisting of a sheltie, a lab pup, some Heinz 57s, Lulu, a recently adopted 13-year-old husky mix, a goldendoodle, and a Belgian Shepherd. When Leo, 15 pounds soaking wet, took a sniff at the Shepherd's ball she abruptly morphed into the Jaws of Death, leaped on Leo and appeared to be reducing him to so much canine confetti. Leo screamed as though his short life was passing before his eyes, the owner ran over and yanked her dog away, and Leo took off like a missile. Three other dogs, innocent bystanders, thought that looked like a lark, and followed him in hot pursuit. Leo surmised they were all in on the murder plot and took a chunk out of Lulu's face when she bowled him over.

Once the fracas came to a halt and everyone examined their respective dogs, the shepherd's owner apologized profusely, "I've been working on her 'ball possessiveness issue' for two years". Oh-kaaaay, so you bring her to a place full of dogs and, well, balls??

Now, who has the behavior problem? Hmm?