Lively Women

What to Do When a Dog Attacks Your Dog: Violence at the Dog Park

by Kristen King on March 18th, 2007

The other day I was musing about how I’d react if another dog attacked my precious baby Pickle-Pie. Today I found out.

The short story:
I went medieval on that dog’s behind.

The long story:
It was cold and I was feeling lazy, so I took Pickles to the dog park to run around instead of walking her like I usually would.  She had a grand old time playing with everyone there for the first two hours. Then “Bella” the schizophrenic German shepherd showed up. 

They started out playing all nice, and then suddenly Bella’s growl changed pitch, and Pickles looked scared.  I waited a moment to see what would happen, and when it became apparent that (a) Bella was after blood, (b) Pickles couldn’t get away, and (c) Bella’s owner wasn’t doing a damn thing about it, I sprinted across the park, jabbed Bella in the throat with my fingertips to get her attention, ripped her off my baby (cutting my finger on her collar in the process, I might add) while making that Cesar Millan Dog Whisperer “Tcshhhhht” noise, and swept Pickles up into my arms.  She was shaking and covered in mud from being smited by stupid, unsupervised puppy-eater poopy-head Bella.

Only then did the other owner come over, making noise about how “she was just playing.”  Playing my ass, lady.  I know playing.  This wasn’t playing.  If it were playing, Bella wouldn’t have kept trying to snap at Pickles even though I was holding her, and she wouldn’t have had that “I’m going to break your neck, you little squirrel-like dog” look in her eyes.  After she nearly took my hand off in an attempt to get Pickles from me, I kneed her in the chest, hard, and then she finally backed down.  Her owner did not apologize.

Pickles was too traumatized to play with the other dogs after that, and she was filthy and cold from being smushed into the mud while Bella was aiming for her mid-morning snack of Pate de Smaller Dog, so we decided to call it a day.

I’m still livid, if you can’t tell, but now I know that when my puppy’s in danger, I don’t remember any of the advice I read anyway — I just want her safe and I want it immediately. I’m glad Bella didn’t get me, but I almost wish she had. Maybe then her owner would have realized that it wasn’t “just playing.” And maybe then I would have had a legitimate excuse to seriously whoop her canine butt Kristen style. I still may — we’ll have to see what next week’s dog park trip brings.

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POSTED IN: A Slice of Kristen's Lively Life, Anxiety, Pets, Real life, Stress