Monday, November 30, 2009

Dog Park Adventure

Saturday we packed up the pugs and went to a new dog park that recently opened in our neighborhood. Luna actually went to the new dog park a week earlier to scope it out and see if it looked like fun before we took the whole crew. Based on Luna's report, we decided it would be fun for all the pugs.

Our mission on Saturday morning was to tire out the pugs, and that includes Solsey, because we knew we had a full day of decorating ahead of us.

We have actually had some trouble lately keeping Solsey from getting bored. She loves her walks, but she physically can't walk far enough to tire out her mind. So we thought a trip to the dog park might provide more of a mental adventure and not tire her out physically as much, as we figured she could find a nice spot to sit and watch the other dogs.

We were actually a little nervous to take Solsey to the park. We weren't sure if she was going to like being there with all the young, playful dogs or exactly how she would react. But we figured, if she didn't like it one of us would take her for a little walk around the dog park and then we could go home. We thought it surely wouldn't hurt to try it once.

When we arrived, the three fawns charged full steam ahead to the dog park entrance, and I stayed behind with Solsey who was taking in all the smells in the parking lot. The girl smells EVERYTHING! A few minutes later we made it to the dog park gate, where we could see the fawns making friends with the other small dogs. I took Sol off her leash & then opened the gate to the small dog area. She trotted in and a few dogs came over to greet her. She greeted them back and then stood there for a second surveying the park with her nose in the air, sniff, sniff, sniffing.

It didn't take her long to spot a bench with two people sitting on it. She made her way over to the bench and was promptly pet by the man on the end. He pet her for a few minutes and when he stopped she moved on down to the woman on the other end of the bench. She got a few more minutes of petting before she ventured out into the park to smell around.

Dogs would come up to her and she would smell them and then she would move on. She didn't seem to mind the dogs running around at all, but you could tell she wasn't there to see the dogs, she was there to see the people.

It wasn't long before she had a woman on the big dog side of the park petting her through the fence. Her experience consisted of smelling around for a bit and then bumping into someone to pet her. Lucky for Sol, dogs continued to arrive and most of them came with two owners. As each new person came to the park, Sol walked over and made sure she got pet.

She made so many friends that day and was so happy to be out doing two of her favorite things, smelling around and getting pet.

I have always known that Sol is pretty unflappable. I have yet to see her in a situation where she gets nervous or anxious, she always has such a calm about her. But, even I thought that the action of the dog park might be too much for her to handle. But she proved, once again, that she can handle pretty much anything. She got everything out of her dog park trip that she wanted. Was she the slowest dog there? By far, but none of that stopped her from enjoying all of her favorite things.

I was so busy watching Sol like a hawk to make sure none of the other dogs got too rough with her that I didn't get many pictures at all. I did get a short little video, and I mean short, of her sauntering around though.

Sol at the Dog Park from obp on Vimeo.