Mark Derr has a new blog on Psychology Today’s website. It’s called “Dog’s Best Friend,” which is also the title of his wonderful book about dogs and dog culture.
The first blog post is about dog parks, and their various deficiencies and inadequacies.
Dog parks are a poor substitute for off-leash hours at parks, but some of them are quite good.
It’s just when the dog park becomes the “canine reservation” that problems start.
I’ve seen dog parks where not a blade of grass is growing. The dogs have run so hard and so long and at such high densities, the grass never gets to grow.
And when it rains, it turns to mud.
But I’ve seen major cities in Europe– London and Munich– that allow dogs a lot more liberty than we would ever think about giving them in most American cities of that size and stature.
No interest in dog parks but I look forward to future posts. Some of the dog related blogs on Psychtoday leave something to be desired.
I feel sorry for those who have such restricted dog walking access as we are lucky to live in a place which is dog and dog walking heaven only forty miles west of London in the chiltern hills of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. We have a friend who can only walk her dog in places like Hyde Park. Bit boring!
Hyde Park is better than just about any dog park in the United States. It’s kind of a paradise in the midst of London.
I had recently requested for a dog park in my neighbourhood and I got an interesting response
Dear Mr. ,
A Leash-Free Zone was tried in the Meadowvale Village area some years ago at the Conservation Centre and proved very unpopular with local residents. I asked the Meadowvale Community Association to revisit the request on your behalf and the response was still a resounding “no”.
In order for a Leash-Free Zone to be considered a community volunteer group is required to maintain the Leash-Free Zone on a daily basis. Leash-Free zones are maintained and all capital costs are paid for by Leash-Free Mississauga and are not City operated or funded. The following is the criteria that is looked at when establishing a Leash-Free Zone:
Be a minimum of 2 acres
Have sufficient parking
Be fully fenced in – the standard fencing is farm or page wire fencing
Have sufficient buffer zone from residential homes, playgrounds and sports fields.
Unfortunately, there is no suitable area that would meet the above criteria and would also be an acceptable buffer zone to the Meadowvale Village Association at this time.
If I can be of assistance in any other matter, please let me know.
Sincerely,
My question:
Where have the locals come from? We dog owners are every bit of locals as well. Does this mean that dog owners are not represented on the Association? Any suggestions?
IS IT ANYTHING TO DO WITH FEAR OF RABIES?
Well Suhail, better come over to Britain to walk your dog, “leash-free” as that jobsworth (“more than my job’s worth”) put it. I suppose it does depend how well socialised the average dog being walked in an area happens to be. I’m not wishing to boast, but those one typically meets in this area are well trained – dogs and owners, with occasional exceptions.
It may be that in an area where historically there is not a recent tradition of walking dogs off the lead then maybe local officials will tend to be nervous of letting it happen, fearing maybe that the first time something bad happens on their patch they will personally get the blame for the consequences.
However, I find it hard to believe this insistance of dogs being on leads is universal in America, so is it just that you are unluckily based regarding this extreme regulation. It looks like it would maybe be a good idea for local dog owners in your area to become organised and try to talk it through with the local authority, maybe start with asking for certain small and benign types of dog being allowed off leash, this combined with strict measures if any dog gets into trouble, maybe owners and dogs being tested to prove they are not likely to be a menace and given a certificate to that effect. I can just say that there is not much of a problem here from dogs off leads but so do misbehave of course.
Here we have to keep dogs under close control, for example, when walking them through a field with sheep in it or if the dog is not yet well trained. There are laws against not clearing up after one’s dog and the custom is for dog owners here to carry small plastic bags (though this is not universally observed, admitedly except in urban parks.)
Question: do you tend to have aggressive dogs to much extent? Question: are there many transmittable diseases from dog to human? Is there nationally a paranoia about dogs roaming free? In Britain we do not have any rabies endemic for example and in that respect I believce we are one of the few countries completely rabies free, being an island, I suppose. But we do know that America has rabies, so is that the main fear?
In Argentina there are no rules about walking your dog off leash or not. Generally, if you can control your dog and it obeys you you walk it off leash, and if you can’t, you use a leash. So it us up to the common sense of the dog owner.
I think that one of the main reasons behind the proliferation of oppressive leash laws here is people’s astonishing willingness to sue over any and every dog-related incident, regardless of whether anyone was injured.
I dislike dog parks anyways. Too many people are uneducated as to what is acceptable dog play and behaviour. Too many people will take a dog who has been cooped up all day and unleash it to wreck havoc on others. Too many people stand around and throw toys, creating problems for dogs who guard or hoard. And there are lots of dogs who do guard and hoard. Then there is the big dog/little dog issue. I hear of several small dogs being killed by big dogs every year in my town. No thanks! Wouldn’t go if you paid me.
If I may explain the situation here in the British countryside and why I think it best to walk dogs off the lead in this environment wherever possible.
Most of the dogs walking in our countryside are off the lead. This has the consequence that when dog meets human the human assumes that this dog must be friendly or its owner would not have let it off lead in the first place.
The free walking dog assumes that the human it is approaching will be friendly or at least neutral especially If this encounter is in in a popular dog walking area and the dog is properly socialised. In my average experience the respective owners will usually exchange a friendly greeting.(It can be different in towns where people are often shy of making eye contact with strangers.)
The presence of the two dogs (or more) provides something in common for the walkers to talk about. That’s how it works, around here anyway. And since the weather in Britain is always changing there are two subjects already on the agenda to discuss: will it rain and do you know what breeds went into the making of your dog, or something similar.
In the main one can assume that if a dog is being walked on a lead here then there is a good reason: it is a staffie or something similar and therefore not safe, a young dog not yet trained to being off lead, or a breed like the beagle, afghan or siberian which has the genetic tendency to disappear into the deep blue yonder, or it may be a dog of any description recently rescued.
However, I do recall staying overnight at a place in the sierras of California one Spring and on day two a dirty, sweaty blue cattle dog came panting home. The owner of the place explained that this dog wandered free and came back home whenever he felt like it. The tales that dog could tell of if only he could speak – well anything but ‘strine’ I suppose. So certainly not all dogs in America are restricted by order of the local authority, Suhail, maybe you are just in the wrong place.
Peter,
In the U.S. essentially every city has leash laws. Leash laws mean that dogs are required to be on a lead at all times (including when the dog is in a park) or the owner can be fined. Those leash laws usually only apply to the city and suburban areas. If you are in the county (what would be called the countryside in Britain) leash laws do not usually apply. That being said it is difficult to end up with a fine for breaking a leash law. I have not met anyone who has. The main application (outside of a park setting) tends to be in dealing with problems that occur when the dog is loose. For example, in my neighborhood, a dog that was off lead attacked and seriously injured a dog who was leashed. The owner of the loose dog was fined for breaking the leash law.
Greece seems to be a special case, not just because of its present economic anarchy (alleged), but in the way it often treats its dogs. The Greeks really like their dogs. However, many Greek dogs somehow end up roaming the streets and I’m not sure exactly why.
A lady work colleague of mine was holidaying on the island of Corfu and she tended to dine each day at the same outdoor restaurant where the same sweet but slightly thin little dog begged food from her table. This was a pretty sure sign that this dog was one of the many many strays living on that beautiful island.
Then this dog began to follow my colleague back to where she was staying and just spent the night waiting patiently for her to come out next day. Well you can guess what happened. My colleague simply fell in love with the little Greek dog and so she arranged for it to be cared for by someone while she returned to England and proceeded to arrange for a dog from Corfu to have all the necessary jabs and paperwork to enter British quarantine. Then she flew back to collect it. In those days it meant months for the newly arrived dog at a registered quarantine establishment near London airport.
It cost this lady a great deal of money but the little dog was finally released and to cut a long story short when last I heard it was being lovingly being cared for by my colleague and her family here in England. This sort of story gets repeated all the time.
There must be something cleverly intuitive about these dogs. I guess it all started when that first orphaned wolf cub began hanging around some stoneage campfire and became accepted into the human tribe maybe having followed them when they broke camp. No doubt it was then also because some tenderhearted lady felt sorry for the little thing. Really clever these ‘wolves’ don’t you think?!
You’ve made up my mind, Zac, we are going to stay here forever and let the dogs walk free from bureacracy.
I walk my dog, Sammie, an altered male Saint, on a leash for several reasons. Firstly, because if a fox runs across his path he’ll follow it to hell and gone; secondly, because the dog rescue we got him from specifically put it in our contract.
But the most important reason is that he is a large, socially dominant, altered male. Sammie gets along famously with 98% of the dogs we encounter on our daily hikes–leashed and unleashed. But he is indeed large and socially dominant w/ other dogs–although not aggressively so. Occasionally other dominant male or altered male dogs (all smaller than he) take exception to him and want to fight. If these dogs are leashed its usually no problem, but most of them are not. So far I’ve managed to separate the combatants before the other dog is seriously injured, but its always a traumatic experience for me. The owners invariably apologize, but when next we encounter them, their dogs are once again off-leash. In my opinion, unless one has a large private area into which to let one’s dog run, leashing for dominant and/or aggressive dogs is a must and for dogs of this nature, dog parks are a no-go.
Surprised by this. My neutered males have never seemed to arouse hostility in other dogs, who don`t seem to see them as “real dogs” at all, presumably because they don`t smell male.
(Most males in the UK are not neutered. I have only ever neutered males for behavioural or health reasons.)
Elizabeth
Most male dogs in the US are neutered and are unaccustomed to the odor of males that aren’t. This sometimes arouses aggression from even neutered dogs.
Of course, the opposite can happen, too.
The rescue found him wandering the streets of Norfolk, Va when he was about a year old, so he didn’t get altered till he as a sub-adult. As a result he retains most of his male characteristics.
I think you are absolutely right – some of that “dominant male”-type behavior is learned behavior, not dependent entirely hormonal. I mean, the hormones kick in at puberty and then, depending on how long the dog is “entire” before being neutered, he may exhibit strongly “male” characteristics and behavior for the rest of his life, because he has learned that behavior, not because of any hormonal influence.
I once had a big male shepherd (GSD) that I rescued & neutered at about 3 years of age. He retained so much of his “male” behavior that you wouldn’t have guessed he was neutered (unless you looked).
I have owned male dogs that were intact for their entire lives and rarely exhibited ‘dominant’ behavior of any kind. Currently, only one of my many male dogs is neutered.
Hormones have an impact on behaviors but the innate personality of the dog cannot be dismissed. IOW, an asshole dog is going to be an asshole dog regardless of whether you cut his balls off, unless you teach him that asshole behavior is not acceptable.
I like that response Jess. Each dog has its own mix of personality characteristics, irrespective of breed. Neutering can have an ameliorating effect on those characteristics, but it won’t turn an aggressive dog into a pussy cat or change the social attitude of a dominant dog. Just like people, some are dominant, some are submissive and some are just damn independent (and, yes, also like people, some are asshats.)
I don’t use ‘dominant’ as a personality descriptor. It’s highly inaccurate and sets people up for misconceptions and misinterpretations. ‘Dominance’ is situational; a dog may act dominant in one situation with a certain dog or it may act appeasing towards or ignore that dog in another situation. ‘Dominant’ implies ‘controlling,’ which is rarely true; most dogs do not care to control or direct every situation they find themselves in. I also think the insistence that ‘dominance’ occurs almost exclusively relation to control of resources is foolish. People forget that very often the behavior is the reward.
I took in two intact male Salukis about a year a half ago, and once they were integrated into the group one of my male Azawakh, Kanazi, immediately challenged the older Saluki, Nahnny. Nahnny handed Kanazi his ass. And it was only after that that their behavior gets really interesting:
I have seen Kanazi bark in Nahnnys face, repeatedly, with full on asshole body language including standing on his toes, head, tail and ears up, looking right into Nahnny’s face. Nahnnys response, even though he knows that he can kick Kanazis ass, was to simply stand there and look away, with totally relaxed body language, until Kanazi gives up. At another time Nahnny may choose to greet the same behavior from Kanazi with a growl and lunge.
Nahnny also plays a game, where he will wait until Kanazi has come in through the dog door and gotten about halfway across the room. Without getting up, Nahnny will bark, just to get Kanazi to scoot into the next room. Nahnnys body language during these barks is completely relaxed; he’s having a good time.
They go back and forth all the time, but the one deciding factor is always Nahnny. Nahnny decides if they will fight, if they won’t, and he manipulates Kanazis behavior very deftly. (In his defense, Kanazi is pretty stupid. He is easy to control.) In their relationship, Nahnny is definitely ‘dominant.’ The really interesting thing is that Kanazi chooses to continue their relationship; he could easily just avoid Nahnny and all the back and forth would end.
Nahnny doesn’t act like that with any of the other dogs. They won’t rise to his bait. Situational dominance.
Dominance is a very specific term in ethology.
Unfortunately, jackasses have taken it and distorted it into something resembling the drapetomania “illness” that slaves were supposed to get.
I don’t think the scientists understand to what degree it’s been distorted in the public mind, and they probably should find another term for it.
The publics desire for simplistic explanations is not helpful, either. Dogs are considerably more complicated than that.
Neat story Jess, but I just don’t know how else to describe it.
When I was in the Army and certain NCO’s walked into the room, they demanded (and got) instant attention from everybody in the room–w/out saying a thing. That’s the way it is w/ Sammie and other dogs, but in his case, some dogs resent it. I’ve mentioned my neighbor’s Pyrenees, Harley, an intact male, before. He literally hates all other male or neutered male dogs and will attack them on sight, but he saves his special rancor for Sam. On 3 separate occasions, when Harley has managed to get out of his fenced yard, he has attacked Sam. Each time Sam has put him down on his back, then walked away. The last time this happened, it was after dark and I was taking Sam for his pre-bedtime walk, Harley turned around and attacked Sam again–w/ the same exact result. Once Sam had Harley in a submissive position, it was over as far as he was concerned.
Though I have owned one naturally aggressive female (a Lab-Chessie cross) I’ve never owned or seen another dog that acts in quite this manner. Its remarkable.
‘Dominance’ is not the correct word. The word you are looking for is ‘confidence.’ Even though (I assume) Sammie is not using overtly challenging body language, he is simply confident and secure with himself, and some other dogs are mistaking this for being challenging. Sammie, IOW, has command presence. This is absolutely not the same as overt dominant behaviors in dogs, which are actually challenging behaviors.
There are a lot of dogs out there who are crap at their own language. A normal dog who is good at language would not challenge Sammie, because such a dog would not mistake Sammies confidence for overt dominant (challenging) behavior.
Without seeing it, I will guess Harleys aggression is likely fear-based, not based in wanting to dominate or control the dogs he attacks.
Dogs are not born understanding their own language. They learn it from their mother, their siblings, and other dogs as they grow up. As they grow up, they learn to look to the dogs or humans around them for clues as to how to behave. Since most humans are crap at dog language, they either don’t understand or misinterpret their dogs, which results in reinforcement for the wrong behaviors.
Dogs like Harley usually haven’t had an opportunity to learn how to conduct themselves around other males, and have fallen into habits based on fear which they were unable to cope with without help (from humans or the example of other dogs) and so they develop consistent incorrect responses simply because one incorrect response got reinforced at the right time.
Dominant/submissive behavior in dogs is (should be) a ritualized game, a dance. I keep a number of intact males and I see this dance all the time. Some dogs will quite literally go out of their way to play the game. I have watched Lolly (Saluki) cross the yard to intercept Hyde (halfghan) just to dance. Lolly raises his tail, walks on his toes, head and ears up, and starts to strut. Hyde didn’t want to play that day, so he just kept walking and averted his eyes. That’s it. Lolly got what he wanted from Hyde (the averted eyes) and walked on. If Hyde had wanted to play the game, he would have responded to Lolly in kind and they’d have done some posturing and grumbling and then gone on their way feeling very manly. Perfectly normal behavior, and seeing that kind of dance between different dogs on a daily basis can tell you how screwed up a lot of dogs really are.
Thanks Jess, I like that. Sammie is most definitely self-confident.
Fear-based aggression certainly applies to the neutered male dog, a spaniel, of another neighbor. This dog is both dog- and people-aggressive (he bit both me and another neighbor in one week) and is afraid of thunderstorms and loud noises. By contrast, Sammie is always ready to meet and greet, loves to go to the vet, heads toward loud noises, loves watching heavy machinery at work, etc. The only time I see fearful behavior in him is when my wife is driving the lawn tractor–but even with that I’ve gotten him to calm down–or when we both have to go away from the house. He does practice avoidance behavior though. If he sees one of us pick up the nail clippers or otic solution he heads for his crate (not that that helps him any, LOL.)
How do you know that Harley is not playing young brother big brother game? The big brother slams him, counts 1, 2, 3 and Harley retreats, buying time to get bigger and to get even next time.
:-D
I suppose that “confident” would have been a more apt description of my Stetson (the dog I just mentioned in the previous reply) than “dominant” … just get so used to hearing big bold males described that way. But “confident” says it better, because he was never aggressive; it just didn’t ever seem to occur to him that any dog, anywhere, wouldn’t look up to him (lol and by and large, most of ‘em did). He wasn’t the sort to start fights; he just sort of stretched to stand as tall as he could, big ole ears and all, and there was a sort of friendly swashbuckling to him that I miss very much.
Of course, a St. Bernard is likely to be the biggest dog at the park, which could arouse all sorts of bad behavior from insecure dogs.
Yep, I think his size is a major part of the problem, although some of the females we’ve owned have been larger.
Nothing more ‘civilised’ available at the dog pound then, massugu? It shouldn’t be a war zone out there, but then I guess by now you love him ‘warts and all’, right?
It wasn’t a pound Peter, it was a breed rescue and in our case we ‘rescue’ Saints–my wife just doesn’t want another breed.
Sam is not an aggressive dog but he is a dominant–something that wasn’t readily apparent when we first got him. He doesn’t bark or growl, he doesn’t attack, but he does stare. He loves people, dogs and other animals, but he also respond in kind when another dog attacks him.
When two dominant dogs (or horses, or chimpanzees, etc.) unfamiliar w/ each other meet, there’s gonna be a pissing match. Imagine a first meeting between Donald Trump and Charlie Sheen and you’ll get the picture.
And yes, we love him to pieces.
“When two dominant dogs (or horses, or chimpanzees, etc.) unfamiliar w/ each other meet, there’s gonna be a pissing match. ” — how accurate! In fact, I think that the term “pissing match” probably originated when someone saw two dominant male dogs meet :-D
You must have very low self-esteem, Peter. You seem to have this continual need to judge people you don’t even know. If Massugu likes Saint Bernards, and the one he happens to own has a forceful personality and Massugu can manage that, what is it to you?
My dogs are unconfined, but I live in a very rural area, on sevaral acres on a dead-end road, where ours is the only house. My two dogs ( a Chihuahua mix & a GSD) have taught themselves their territorial limits and they do not stray unless they are walking with us. I love walking with them unleashed along our own road. They are so happy that way, bouncing around usually about 50 feet ahead, then running back to “tell” us what they’ve seen. We sometimes walk along the highway at the end of our road, and there I do keep them leashed, for their own safety.
It is true that in many cities in Europe the attitudes towards dogs is considerably less stringent. Remember sitting in a small restaurant in Venice (way off the canal) and two tables had dogs sitting under them, quite happy to partake in the odd scrap that was handed to them. Too far? Maybe…..