Murph in sniff mode…
Murphy’s almost six years old now, so his wild puppy days are behind him. But in his prime, the prospect of a trip to the dog park would get him wound up with wild-eyed, tail-thumping excitement before the “ark” in “park” was fully enunciated. Even though the dog park isn’t as alluring to Murph nowadays, every once in a while we’ll still go.
There’s always the dogs who come to greet every newcomer, the dogs that are a little more shy, the dogs that are looking for a good chase, and the dogs who happily accommodate that. Murph used to always get chased for some reason, but now he prefers to join in and be a chaser instead. When he decides to stop sniffing, that is. He’s a lot more independent anymore and not as eager to make friends or get rowdy.
But one thing that hasn’t changed is the warm feeling Wayne and I get almost every time we go to a dog park. I’m not talking about heartwarming feelings of watching happy puppies romping and playing. (Even though we get those too.) Rather, I’m talking about the warm sensation that comes when a dog decides to lift its leg on us.
Unfortunately, this has happened to one or the both of us almost every time we’ve ever gone to a dog park.
Doesn’t matter which park we visit. Doesn’t matter if we wear clothes that have not previously been peed on. (Often times we don’t, because unfortunately this has happened during shorts weather.) It does, however, seem to matter how long we’ve been standing still in one spot.
The last time we took Murph to a dog park we went in a caravan, with Lady and her people (Ms. Tina and her daughter Nikki) and Sophie and her mom Nila in their cars behind us. None of us have fenced yards, so when our dogs decide to run, it’s with us still attached to their leashes. We’ve become quite coordinated maneuvering quickly enough to make sure the leashes don’t get knotted together from all the nonsense. The dog park seemed like a good place to let them all run crazy off leash for a change.
But when we got there, Murph did his “I’m going to sniff everything and ignore you” routine. Sophie was her eager ready to chase and play with anyone who was game. And Lady, who’s usually very sassy, found herself intimidated and hid behind Ms. Tina.
Since it was a nice afternoon, we all just sort of hung out and let the dogs adjust. Eventually they did play. About an hour had passed, and I was making sure to be vigilant to keep moving so I wouldn’t be mistaken as a pee-post. I was just about to announce that it must be some kind of record I hadn’t been peed on yet when Nikki shrieked and pushed a dog away from her.
Yep, sure enough, she’d gotten that warm feeling. She was mortified. I was mortified for her. And then I felt bad that I hadn’t said something sooner, warned her to always be on the lookout for renegade leg-lifters.
Needless to say, with her new “wet look” not making a good fashion statement for her, Nikki and Ms. Tina packed Lady up and went home.
Been there, done that, have the matching yellow-stained pants and socks as a souvenir.
We haven’t gone back to the dog park since. But I’m thinking of creating a new fashion line for dog park-goers. Something along the lines of disposable plastic wrap leggings. What do think? A new trend in the making?
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