Since the weekend, we've been taking Sam to a park every day. On Monday night, we went back to the Off-Leash Park at Lake Ontario Park but were driven away by a couple of things.
Because it was so humid and rainy on Monday the mosquitoes were terrible. After the rain, the breeze disappeared. We were trying to keep Sam in the shady part of the fenced off area and the bugs were thick under the trees. Mark and I endured being chewed alive for a while but when this big bitch named Mia started going nuts on Sam and on us, we decided to leave. It was odd actually, around the time when Mia arrived with her humans, I asked Mark, "Can you smell alcohol?" There was a very very strong smell of it, like it smells when it's coming from a person's pores (I know that's sort of gross but that's what it was). There was an older gentleman (probably in his 70's and a young woman (looked like late 20's to me) with this dog and I got a sense that the smell was coming from him.
They let their dog off the leash and she was chasing some other dogs who were closer to her in size. At first I thought, "how cool, they are really running hard." It didn't take me long to realize though, that she was chasing them in an "assertive" fashion. Sam had been off playing with some smaller dogs and had made his way over to me. For whatever reason, Mia got tired of chasing these other dogs and come toward Mark and I. Now, while this was going on, a very cool dog named Cassie was sharing Sam's water with him. Mia made a move toward us and Sam barked at her, just a little "hey back away from my human" sort of thing. Mia really didn't like this because she got very vicious and wouldn't move away, kept barking at Sam. She was actually so loud (of course by this time Sam starts barking) that a guy in the condo across street hollared at them to shut up.
Mia's owner was all "hey it's alright" to us and "you be good or we're going home" to Mia. Really, he should have put the leash on her and left. He didn't though so we did. After that episode, I think we'll wait until at least the ground dries up before we return the park. It was quite the doggie drama.
Last night, we went back to the dog park near our house. It's pretty open and doesn't have any shade but last night, it didn't have any other dogs either. Part of what is good about Lake Ontario Park is that Sam can hang out with other dogs. He doesn't really run as much when they are there though, he plays but doesn't run like he does at the M Centre. Last night, he ran his little guts out.
It's very interesting, all of this dog park stuff. I just hope that they give the go-ahead to the pilot project so that things can get settled and be permanent. It's a little embarassing that a city the size of Kingston doesn't actually have a permanent leash-off area yet.
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