Thursday, April 13, 2006

Off Leash and Loving It

We finally found the St. Paul off-leash dog park, and boy is Bermondsey having a good time! All kinds of dogs in a huge park with hills and trees and puddles and trails and big dogs and little dogs and the whole thing is just so great!

There is definitely some shepherding in his genetic makeup, as he loves to run in huge curves back and forth, up and down hills, his legs stretching full length and his fur blown back from the speed. He's practically generating G forces.

He likes other dogs, a great deal, but he especially likes the big dogs. He can be slightly obnoxious because he wants them to go running with him--I guess he likes the challenge of keeping up. He was absolutely blissed out yesterday when a pair of golden retrievers showed up and began fetching a tennis ball with their owner. Bermondsey had no interest in the ball itself, he just wanted to run.

Sadly, it appears that most large dogs are either congenitally even tempered, or have been well trained--very few of them really want to just take off. Occasionally one will run for a while, but we've found Bermondsey gets really good reactions from the dogs that are close to his size. They don't run to exhaustion like he wants to, but they will take off, and then start exploring the trees and all the good doggie smells.

If only they served pizza and peanut butter, I think this would be Doggie Heaven.

1 comment:

Ari_1965 said...

My dog doesn't "take off" at the off-leash park, he circles looking for a dog to wrestle with. I don't see the thrill myself, but he's not happy until he finds a dog he can gnaw on and who will gnaw right back.