Dog parks aren't appropriate for every dog, and urban dog parks have their own unique challenges--a revolving population and small foot prints, to name a few. If Annie had her way, all dogs parks would have life guards! She gives some reasons why you might think twice before bringing just any dog to any dog park. If you've decided the dog park might be a good thing for your dog, take some tips from Annie's partner Kate Senisi, a trainer with an expertise in working with high-arousal urban dogs. Annie shares Kate's top eight tips, and adds a few of her own. This episode talks about how to enter the park, what to bring, signs it may be time to leave, and more.  

This episode offers special thanks to Alexandra Messiter, who, along with her dog Cooper, has been students at SFTD since 2019. Alexandra and her husband gave a generous donation to our Scholarship Fund recently, and we are so appreciative!  "I felt moved to donate mostly because Cooper (who we adopted from Bideawee in 2019) is just so awesome - he's such a fun, smart, loving companion and has made my husband and I much more passionate about trying to encourage folks to consider rescuing.  Because we know that lack of access to affordable quality training can lead to more dogs being surrendered -- and can discourage folks from adopting great dogs with some behavior concerns -- we're always happy to help any organization that is filling a need, which SFTD is definitely doing here." -- Alexandra Messiter  

Visit our site for 8 tips to read Kate's 8 tips on keeping your dog safe at the dog park. 

https://www.schoolforthedogs.com/8-tips-to-keep-your-dog-safe-at-the-dog-park/

Learn more about our Scholarship Fund at schoolforthedogs.com/fund 

Get half off our on-demand dog body language course using code HALFOFFBODYLANG 

https://storeforthedogs.com/products/750634 

Other episodes mentioned in this episode:  

SniffSpot: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/air-b-pee-sniff-spot-allows-dog-owners-to-rent-peoples/id1355439730?i=1000512680806 

Bully Test: https://www.schoolforthedogs.com/podcasts/episode-95-the-bully-test-how-to-tell-if-your-dog-or-kid-or-country-is-having-fun-plus-fomo-crate-training/

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Partial Transcript:

Annie:

Hey all. Annie here. Today, I wanted to talk about dog parks. Dog parks are not appropriate for every dog, and dog parks in cities have their own unique challenges. They can be very small and dense, and they can have a highly revolving population. Meaning that a lot of people in a big city, a lot of people bring their dogs to a big city dog park means that you might see a lot of different dogs there. It's not just a small population of a dozen or so dogs, like I imagine maybe some small town dog park, what that must be like.

It can be challenging for dogs and for people. 

Full Transcript at SchoolForTheDogs.com/Podcast

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