I took Puppy Dog to the little dog park in the city the other day.
I didn't want him to run much, because he had sore back legs that morning, so I just let him run about, rather than throwing the ball for him.
This gave me a chance to really observe some of the dogs in the park, and I realized something - some of them were on some kind of patrol.
Play patrol
A little Dalmation, about a year old, wanted to play. Now. With anyone. Just play with me. Please.
He communicated this by bounding around and barking. He went up to just about every dog and every human.
Bounce! Bounce! Bark! Bark!
Smaller dogs skittled away, bigger dogs ignored him. There was one dog - a little pitbull - who did the let's-do-it dip-down, but he was soon distracted by his daddy throwing a ball for him.
And so play patrol continued. Bounce! Bounce! Bark! Bark!
Bark patrol
The little dog park has a wire fence and, being in the middle of town, it constantly has people walking by. Now and again you'll get the one dog who seems to think that the park is his temporary den, that pedestrians are marauding hordes and therefore it's Defcon 3.
They run along the fence, barking and growling madly, ignoring calls and whistles and pleas from their owners.
They're noisy little buggers.
Treat patrol
There was a big dog - I don't know what breed, except that he looked like a small pony.
Big dog was obviously food motivated, and must have been given a treat one day by a kind - perhaps petrified - stranger.
And so big dog was checking if this might happen again.
It can be a little disconcerting to have a massive dog bound up to you, ignore the empty hand of introduction you stretch out, bend down away from your potential head stroke, sniff your purse and pockets, and bound off again.
I was a little confused till I saw him go and do it to the next person. And the next. And the next.
I have no idea if he got a treat in the end or not.
Sniff patrol
Puppy Dog, not having his favorite game - chase the tennis ball - to play, went off to sniff out the scene.
He ran here and there, sniff-sniff, sniff-sniff. He ignored other people throwing balls, he ignored other dogs introducing themselves. He just kept inspecting the park.
And, as dogs do, whenever he came accross a spot that another dog had marked, he had to mark it too.
This being a dog park, there were rather a lot of those spots.
Hence:
Sniff-sniff, psst-psst.
Watching him, a little song came into my head...
With a sniff-sniff here
And a psst-psst there
Here a sniff
There a psst
Everywhere a sniff-psst
Puppy Dog's on sniff patrol, Ee-eye ee-eye oh!
Eventually, as he always does, he ran out of pee. But that didn't stop him cocking his leg... Ever the optimist, our dog.
Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 3:25PM 
