People you meet #8 - The guy who's scared of dogs
Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 April 2008 04:05:09
A new character has emerged on the dog park scene lately. It's a guy who is scared of dogs.
As you can see, the area where I walk consists of two parks, joined by a bush track. Most people tend to start at the dog park end, as this is the end where most people live. Now as you can also see, only the dog park is a dog park. Dogs are allowed in the bush on a lead (although this is often disobeyed by those with obedient and calm dogs) and at the other end they are technically supposed to be on leads, however an enormous empty oval in a fairly secluded location is generally an ok place to exercise a dog if it isn't bugging other people. So a common dog-walking scenario is to arrived at the first park, play for a bit if there are other dogs around, walk to the second park, play if there are dogs around, do a couple of laps if you feel led, walk back to first park to see if there are any dogs yet.
There are a lot of non-dog people who use this same walking circuit for their own exercise, except they don't have to look for dogs to play with all the time. Hence they must first traverse the dog park to get to the bush. And when they reach the bush, it is quite likely that they will encounter dogs either on or off a lead. Those who are scared of dogs adopt a number of coping techniques. Some just ignore the dogs or stand still if the dog approaches them. Others tell dog owners that they are scared of dogs. Another group get very aggressive. People you meet # 8 is one of these.
He is a jogger. Looks pretty tough and fearless. Every time he arrives at the dog park he retrieves his large stick that he keeps near the road. It's about a metre long, 5cm thick. Then he keeps jogging the circuit. If approached by a dog or if anywhere near one, he goes out of his way to hit or kick it. He has told one of the dog owners quite aggressively that his wife is afraid of dogs. This is interesting, however his wife is not present on his daily jogs. It seems POSSIBLE that perhaps HE is afraid of dogs. Which is nothing to be embarrassed about (I am scared of knees for example) and the dog owners at the park are very good about keeping their dogs away from scared people. But if that is the case, hitting a friendly dog with a stick is not a good way to protect yourself. See, hitting dogs with sticks doesn't make them very happy. In fact, it can make them quite angry and a bit bitey. A stick can be useful for sort of guiding them away from you (I have done this on occasions with Pooka's ball flinger) but not so much as a hitting device.
I'm sure there are also some animal cruelty things related to hitting a non-aggressive dog in an off-leash park. Or anywhere for that matter.