We have a new Dog Park opening in the City of Margate, FL very soon. It is being built now. Although it took years for the actual building to start, many dog owners look forward to it. Dog parks can be good places to exercise young dogs, and dogs with lots of energy. The problem is, dog parks can also be unsafe for your dog. Even the best intended pet owners don’t know for sure how their dog will respond to every dog that might enter the park. Although in many cases dogs off leash with plenty of room between them get along better then on leash…. there is still a possibility of a dog fight.
Here is a typical story:
“We’ve been going to the dog park for years and it’s always been fine. My dog has never had issues. They love it and play and get so excited to go, but we were there last weekend and another dog attacked my dog out of nowhere.”
Suffering a near-death experience or a near-fatal car accident would be a traumatic event for us, it can be traumatizing for our dogs to go through experiences like that also. We will potentially never see certain things or the world exactly the same as we did prior to that.
When a traumatic event happens at a Dog Park, there are things you can do with your dog such as rehabilitation, training, or building of trust and confidence with your dog. But these things can take a lot of time and a lot of work. We probably won’t ever get back to that dog’s mindset that they had prior to that traumatic event.