Unfortunately, Kou and I did not have a good day at the dog park.
The evening started out fine with a couple different dogs in the park: a Border Collie, a Pug mix, a Shepherd mix, and my Kou (who is a Curr mix.) All of the dogs were playing very nicely and seemed to all be enjoying themselves.
Then a man (brown hair and brown beard, wearing glasses, driving a jeep) showed up with his two dogs. They looked like some sort of hunting dogs, from their tall, lean builds. Shortly after arriving, both of his dogs became aggressive toward the Shepherd mix. They both ran her down the whole length of the park, biting and attacking her all the while. The man did not move once to try to intervene. I think he may have yelled for his dogs to come to him, but after they did not he simply stood and let it happen.
The Shepherd mix managed to get away and fled back to her owner immediately. I happened to be speaking with the Shepherd's owner at this time with my dog next to me. We stayed there talking for a bit and then one of the man's dogs came over and started growling at the Shepherd mix and my dog.
--At this point, I would like to point out that one of the park rules is: "an owner must remove their dog at the first sign of aggression." Therefore, if the man had bothered to intervene when he noticed his dogs attacking the Shepherd mix, he would have then removed them from the park (per the rules) and this next part would never have had the opportunity to occur.--
As this man's dog is growling at ours, my dog placed herself between the Shepherd mix and the aggressive dog. I think possibly to protect the Shepherd mix that had already been attacked. Regardless, this man's dog continued to growl at my dog, then suddenly lunged at my dog and attacked her very aggressively. They were rolling around fighting, my dog trying to defend herself, and I did my best to grab my dog and remove her from the situation.
The man never once came over to try to pull his dog away.
As I grabbed my dog and pulled her away from the fight, a park ranger drove up to the fence. As I was settling my dog down, the park ranger moved over near the exit/entrance. The man with the aggressive dogs grabbed his two dogs and left without saying a word to anyone. The park ranger said nothing to the man with the two dogs, nor any of the other people that left.
Then, as the girl with the Shepherd mix and I made our way toward the entrance of the park so we could start leaving, the park ranger got out of his golf cart and came over to stare at our dogs awkwardly. So, naturally, they both began to bark at him. He then looked at me specifically and told me that my dog is too aggressive and banned from ever coming back to the dog park. The girl with the Shepherd mix then asked him, "What about that man with those other two dogs? Those dogs attacked my dog and then her dog." To which the park ranger simply stated, "I wasn't around for that."
In short, I am completely and overwhelmingly outraged that my dog, who was attacked by another dog with a severely negligent owner that is putting people and pets in very legitimate danger (as seen in the attached photos), is being banned from going back to the her favorite place because the park ranger was "not around for that". My dog naturally defended herself and it is obvious from the severity of these injuries that my dog was not the aggressor.
Not to mention, patrons of the park are only supposed to be BANNED from coming back after MULTIPLE offenses, meanwhile I've been bringing my dog to this park 3 or more times a week for the past 5 months and have never had a SINGLE problem with my dog showing aggression toward any dog or person of any age or size, let alone starting/being involved with a fight. I always pick up my dog's waste while there, I even take the time to make sure all of the water bowls are filled up when I'm there.
In my opinion, the park ranger showed extreme negligence when it came to the situation. He blatantly told both myself and the girl with the Shepherd mix that he wasn't around for all of it, then decided that the answer to the problem would be profiling my dog and banning her despite not knowing any of the actual story.
I will be writing letters and contacting every person within my power to let them know about this situation. Not only do we have a man with two highly aggressive dogs that is allowed to freely use the dog park, but my dog (who has never shown signs of aggression) has been injured AND banned.
Please keep an eye out for this man if you frequent the park, as I would hate for anyone's dogs to be banned for defending themselves and/or ending up even more injured than mine was.
In the pictures attached you can see the damage to her stomach and a puncture wound to her neck/throat area. read more