Going to the dogs

There's a saying in television... "never work with children or animals". Inevitably they don't do what you want and it usually ends in disaster. But weekends are a different story. And a visit to our local dog park provides endless hours of entertainment.

For a start, it's Georgie's favourite place in the whole world. Not everyone enjoys the dog park but she certainly does. Dozens of dogs to meet and greet. Good ones, bad ones. Fat, thin, fast, slow. All shapes and sizes. It's amazing how the dog world keeps evolving. One day we encountered poodles, spoodles, schnoodles and a labra-doodle.

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Surprisingly dog parks don't have universal support. In fact in Auckland there's debate over whether they're a good thing. Keeping dogs separate from the rest of the community, a man from the council explained, isn't necessarily good for a dog's long-term socialisation. I guess that means they have a great time racing round the dog park but aren't so well adapted to strolling round town where a better standard of behaviour is expected.

Someone else also pointed out that irresponsible dogs owners can be, well, just as irresponsible. I guess that means letting a badly trained dog loose at the dog park and turning a blind eye to any mayhem that follows.

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Dog expert Mark Vette has a view on all this. He says half of us don't have control of our dogs. That's probably true. Forty percent have some control. Just 10% have good control, which means your dog comes when you call it. He says owners have a responsibility to keep their pets under control even at the dog park. Are they a good thing? Yes. Should there be more of them? Yes.

Recall... perfect recall... not hard to get, but can be hard to sustain!