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Dog Parks: Danger Unleashed by Tony Johnson, DVM, DACVECC
The following article is written by Dr Tony Johnson a veterinarian published June 4, 2012.
On the surface, it’s hard to take issue with a dog park. It encourages dogs and their owners to go out and get some exercise, fresh air and sunshine, all the while strengthening the bond between them. With our fractured, modern lives and a spreading epidemic of human and
pet obesity (not to mention apartment dwelling), itseems like a made-to-order cure-all for everyone involved. It is hard to find fault with the idyllic image of dogs romping and playing, tails wagging while their owners chat over the small details that make up our lives.
When I first got out of veterinary school about 15 years ago, this was my impression of dog parks; benign wonderlands where forest creatures could romp, and people could reconnect with their pets and each other. You could practically hear the choir of cherubim singing their tiny castrati tunes. I was a big proponent of them (dog parks, not castrati), and talked them up to everyone until the bodies started coming in.
My first job out of school was my internship year at a busy emergency and specialty hospital in California’s midsection. After a bit, I noticed a mounting body count of injured dogs coming directly to the emergency room from the nearby dog park. Actually, ‘injured’ doesn’t quite convey the carnage: torn up, eviscerated and maimed all come a little closer to describing the victims of dog-on-dog violence that I saw on an almost nightly basis during the warmer months.
The stories from the owners of the injured were almost always the same:
“He was just playing when this HUGE dog came out of nowhere!”
“A bigger dog picked him up and shook him like a chew toy!”
“This massive dog just swooped in, bit him and ran off – I didn’t seean owner anywhere!”
The victims were almost always smaller than the attackers, and Yorkies and Bichons seemed to be the most common targets of the larger aggressors, a condition known in the profession as “Big Dog – Little Dog” and abbreviated BDLD. BDLD is what we would write on our dry-erase incoming board when we got the call that a case like this was coming in. The only abbreviations that would strike more fear in our hearts were ‘HBC’ for Hit By Car and ‘GDV’ for Gastric Dilation-Volvulus, or bloat. ‘ABC’ for Attacked by Clowns was a distant fourth.
The injuries, sometimes incurred in just a few seconds, would be horrendous, the trauma massive. Many did not survive or were euthanized due to the finances involved in even attempting to get them better. It is shocking how much damage a set of jaws can do in such a short time; 30 seconds of fighting could lead to weeks of recuperation, multiple surgeries and thousands in medical bills. Many of the owners became victims themselves, usually bitten on the hand or arm as they tried to wrest their smaller pets from the jaws of the larger dogs (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
reports that 885,000 people need medical attention every year for dog bite injuries.)
It was sometimes hard for me to tell where the blood was coming from – the owner or my patient. I often informed pet owners on the nature of their dog’s injuries, and then sent them packing to the ER for treatment themselves.
So, needless to say, my initial enthusiasm for the playful and beatific environment of the dog park began to erode around the edges a bit. I saw owner after owner and pet after pet traumatized when an afternoon’s romp in the grass turned deadly.
This is not to say that I think dog parks are inherently bad or the people who frequent them evil. But there is no denying the dangers unleashed when dogs’ ancestral instincts to chase after smaller prey take over. Not every owner has a well-trained and well-behaved companion, and you need to learn how to look out for the other guy and protect your dog from injury. I still think there is benefit to dogs, and their people, of getting exercise and commingling. How can we resolve this conundrum? How can we keep people and pets safe while still getting the maximum benefit out of a dog park?
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