Reactive dogs and leash walking - interesting perspective

[k9kreationz]

Do you guys take your reactive dogs to the dog park?

I think this could be a loaded question. Why? because many of our dogs are reactive for different reasons and to different things. So while one reactive dog may be okay at a dog park, another may not be.

Koji does fine in daycare. He's fine with other dogs off leash. Does the sniff thing. He does, however, like to chase down dogs and that becomes a problem, however, he is not reactive at a dog park, to humans or dogs. His "reactivity" turns into "wanting to herd in a not so good way".

Versus, on leash, he's growling, lunging, barking.

 

[hrcarol]

The park I've been walking Finley at has a dog park. I'd like to try taking him there. I'm just worried it would all backfire. It's been a while since he's been around strange dogs off leash. My guess is, he'll start off barking at all the dogs and then realize it doesn't work off leash. Then he'll probably be ok w/ the small dogs and terrified of the big ones. We were told at our Reactive Dog Class that we should never ever take our dogs to a dog park.