Chip Kean, left, of Leader of the Pack Canine Obedience Training and Erin Young of the Canine Academy hosted a Dog Park Awareness talk during Lisa's Doghouse Summer Sale on Sunday. PHOTOS BY LIAM BERTI
When a dog is in fight or flight mode, sticking up for their survival in self-defence, there’s no telling what they will do.
Just ask Miranda Weingartner, owner of Northern Bone Pet Services.
With her 13-year-old dog caught in a heated confrontation with another dog last year, Weingartner did what she intuitively felt was right: grab her dog by the collar and stop the fight before it escalated any further.
But the dog’s survival instincts took over as she snapped her head back, catching her owner’s hand with her teeth and causing Weingartner to amputate the tip of her finger.
“You have to know your dog and know what situations can cause those bad interactions between dogs,” Weingartner said in reflection. “The more I know about my dog and her style, the more I know about what can cause a fight, so it’s really about always being vigilant, being careful and watching for those warning signs.”
Stories like Weingartner’s are why two of North Bay’s top dog obedience instructors took to the Lisa’s Doghouse Summer Sale on Sunday to educate local pet owners on the proper procedures for dog park etiquette.
After the North Bay and District Humane Society officially opened the city’s first off-leash dog park earlier this month, Chip Kean of Leader of the Pack Canine Obedience Training and Erin Young of the Canine Academy felt it was an opportune time to educate local dog owners on proper park practice.
The highly anticipated park, located on Champlain Park Road, has been a hot spot for dogs and their owners.
But it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of having a new pup hub and overlook the simple safety standards for the humans and their companions.
Based on their own expert observations of the park behaviour, the pair said a higher level of owner awareness will help prevent pernicious incidents.
In her detailed discussion, Young said it’s crucial to be honest about your dog’s suitability for the dog park, to monitor the other types of dogs before entering the park, exercise your dog before going to the park, and avoid big dogs playing with small dogs, among a long list of other tips.
She even cautioned listeners to not take their small children or babies in strollers into the park, which some testified to witnessing.
Being able to recognize your dog’s body signals for stress, tension, fear, play and aggression, Young said, can help tell the difference between fun or fight and goes a long way in preventing pernicious aggression.
She also used telling photos and simulations to identify dog types, such as The Bully, The Pummeler and The Hunter-Seeker, for owners to better attune themselves to the dog park environment.
“There’s no reason that dog parks have to be a dangerous place or not a fun environment to take your dog to,” said Weingartner. “It really all depends on me and how much I know about my dog, as well as the signs that I know to look for in other dogs.”
If tensions do escalate, there are specific techniques the owner can use to break the fight up without suffering a redirected bite like Weingartner did.
In the absence of a definitive, professional monitor, owners are left to take matters into their own hands.
Kean, a certified professional dog obedience instructor with over 40 years of experience and go-to local expert in behavior modification, gave a detailed demonstration on how to intervene if the worst comes to worst between your dog and another.
The two things to avoid when breaking up a fight, he said, are to try and grab the dogs by the collar and scream at the dogs. As Weingartner can attest to, the first puts the human at extreme risk of a redirected bite, while the latter usually escalates the aggressions.
Instead, owners should try to startle the dogs with a sudden loud noise like an air horn, spray the dogs with a water hose or pail of water, throw a blanket over their heads or separate them with a large, flat object like a folded lawn chair.
Most importantly, Kean emphasized, everyone should have a plan before going into the park.
“You have to know exactly what you’re walking to and, at a dog park, you never know what you’re walking into because you don’t know what the other dogs are all about,” Kean said on Sunday. “It’s exciting to have a place to let your dog run free, but you’re also in a confined area with many other dogs. Your dog might be great, but the other dogs might not be.
“If people follow the rules and are aware of how to have their dogs in the park, it can be a good thing,” he added. “But, unfortunately, that doesn’t happen all the time and there have been many cases of dog fights and even human injury in other municipalities that have parks because they don’t know how to break up a potential fight properly.”
Kean and Young’s session was just one segment of a full weekend schedule of informative sessions at Lisa’s Doghouse as part of the local business’ annual summer sale.
Saturday’s forum revolved around natural pet health products from industry leader Doug Boucher, while Kean and Young were followed up by dog fitness and injury prevention information by Laurel Dutrisac of Touch Animal Rehabilitation.
“We do this to create local awareness and create community sense so people can know what solutions are available to them,” said Blake Paulin, co-owner of Lisa’s Doghouse. “Everyone has different problems and we create different teams in the community so people can get the best of all of them.
“We’ve got trainers, rehabilitation facilities, rescues, health professionals and anything else people need, so it’s nice for everyone to go to these sources and ask questions directly,” he concluded, “because there’s so much misinformation out there.”
