The Dog Park Scandals

Any regular visitor toa dog park has witnessed squabbles between dogs. With little exception, what constitutes aggression and fighting is widely open to interpretation. After a scuffle (where no blood has been spilled) the people who witnessed the incident will have very different versions of who is at fault and why the scuffle happened.

An article published in 2003 in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science scientifically studied the incidence of aggression at one dog park in Indianapolis, Ind. The study involved the systematic observation (and often videotaping) of dogs at a dog park over an eight-month period. The park was two acres and enclosed by a chain link fence. Overall, 72 hours were recorded and 177 dogs were observed.

Defining aggression

The researchers developed clear descriptions for play behaviors, aggressive behaviors, dominance displays and social greetings. Features such as body postures, facial expressions and vocalizations were used to categorize the behaviors.

Aggression was defined as any of these behaviors alone or in combination:

• Charging or lunging at another dog while growling or barking.

• Snapping at another dog; biting (clamping down) once physical contact was made.

The victim's behavior is key

However, the victim dog's behavior ultimately dictated whether or not the incident was recorded as aggression. For example, if an aggressor is lunging and/or growling, but the victim dog is not running away and not being pinned down or bitten, then the incident is not recorded as aggression. This is important to note, because often, what we humans interpret as aggression, dogs seem to understand as something else. Using the "victim" dog's actions as a barometer for the level of aggression a dog is showing isan excellent gauge. Over the observation period, there were 28 conflicts involving 37 dogs. Only 12 of these dogs showed aggression; the other 25 were involved in the scuffle but were not aggressors. Of the 28 incidents, only 14 were clear enough to be described as aggressive encounters. During the other 14 incidents, it was too unclear to determine if the encounters wereaggressive in nature or merely rough play.

Each aggressive encounter lasted less than one minute. Sometimes the dogs terminated the conflict and sometimes the owners intervened. None of these encounters resumed once they were terminated.In the 14 clear conflicts, there were only nine aggressors (three were repeat offenders). In mostof these incidents, the aggressor was an adult (older than 16 months) and the victims were generally puppies. Five aggressors were female and four were male; all were neutered. No patterns were found regarding specific breeds or mixes.

Risk for injury

While these findings seem to indicate that aggressive encounters in off-leash dog parks is very small, it's important to note that this is one study at one park over one period of time. By no means does it imply that serious altercations do not occur.There have been several incidents over the years at local dog parks in which dogs have been killed.

Each of us acceptsan inherent risk when we take our dogs to the dog park and each of us has a different risk threshold. Contributing to the issue of riskis the fact that many people in the dog park don't understand how dogscommunicate and misinterpret normal dog play as aggressiveness. This can lead to all sorts of trouble when the owners of each dog have differing interpretations and as a result, react in different ways.

Off-leash parks give owners the opportunity to exercise their dogs in a manner that is hard to do under any other condition. When it comes to getting a dog tired, hardly anything beats playing with other dogs. One cannot underestimate the importance of allowing a dog to continue to practice his or her social skills beyond puppyhood.With that said, dog parks are not for everyone and if you do not feel comfortable in that setting, you shouldn't force yourself to go. There are plenty of other ways to give your dog the exercise it needs.

Wendy van Kerkhove owns Fresh Air Training and is an editorial advisory board member for Star Tribune Pet Central. www.freshairtraining.com