Dog Friendly vs Friendly Dogs

I absolutely love dog behavior and could (did) spend hours a day observing them interact.

This is your heads up that this a dog behavior heavy post. Enjoy!

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One of the many reasons I was excited to move to Germany was because the country was considered to be very dog friendly. In Indiana, I loved taking Zoey to the farmer's markets on weekends, any store that would allow her, and sit outside in uncomfortable weather if it meant she could join us on a restaurant patio. Germany is indeed very dog friendly where most shops and even restaurants allow dogs inside.

At first, I was so excited about this because Zoey didn't require any additional training to be behaved in these environments, even restaurants, because of training and commands* we had previously established. However, since all restaurants have been closed since November, we only were able to go a few times. Most of our interactions now are with people and dogs on walks.

We see people out all the time with their dogs, and while the dogs perfectly ignore humans, they tend to bark and lunge at other dogs.

Outside of a friend with a Chihuahua that we walked with once, we have not been able to interact with any other dogs. Unfortunately, Zoey is starting to have some regression in her behavior due to the lack of positive interactions. While she typically ignores barking dogs, it has become so frequent and intense in our interactions that she has started to respond in a similar, albeit, milder manner.

Our solution was to find a dog park where she could have some good old-fashion off leash fun in a safe fenced in environment, where us humans could also remain socially distanced. If that wasn't enough of a search criteria, we are currently under a coronavirus lockdown where we are not allowed to travel, outside of work purposes, further than 15km (about 10 miles) away from our home. We tried a dog park that we found on Google last weekend but it turned out to be more of a small open meadow off a walking trail. No fence, no other dogs.

Zoey watching the parasailer practice in the field.

This week however, we struck gold! We found a huge park with miles of intersecting walking paths, a large open field, a fenced in portion, and more dogs on AND off leash walking than we have even seen!

We started in the fenced in area with two other dogs: Freddie, a long-bodied wirey-haired terrier who thought he owned the place, and Honey, a sweet, timid large mix who had to wear a muzzle because her owner explained that she constantly eats dog poop - ha! This made me laugh because it's a very innovative way of dealing with the issue, and also proud as a trainer that she wasn't shy about having to muzzle her dog. Muzzling isn't representative of a bad dog here, its just another training tool like a leash, which is a welcomed change! Zoey got along well with both dogs and even though the area was a muddy mess, they all enjoyed running and sniffing together.

We then put our leash back on and started walking around the rest of the park. We started encountering dog after dog both on and off leashes. Honestly, I was a bit nervous when we started passing them just because of our previous experiences. After we passed 10+ dogs in under 5 minutes without any issues, I started to relax and realize these dogs were all friendly. We even had an elderly pack of three dogs, with no owners in sight, approach us, sniff, then move along. I like to think they were the "park regulars" who spotted us newcomers and came to welcome and check us out.

We eventually got to an area where I felt comfortable with Zoey off leash and she was able to get whatever little energy she had left after the dog park, out. She slept soundly the entire way home and the rest of our weekend. We plan to go back as often as the weather allows with a goal of being able to walk with her off leash past other dogs too.

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*For my fellow training nerds: We use a "leave it" command used in this context for food and people, as well as an "under" command where she crawls under a small space like a table or chair and lays down. We also have never fed her from the table or counter at home which helped her be unaffected by the table food here.