An exhibition of intimidation

It’s unnerving how quickly a pleasant afternoon can turn weird. A couple weeks ago, we took our dogs Paris and Savannah to MacArthur Unleashed Dog Park on East Ninth Street near the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock. It’s not our favorite local dog park, but it’s nice to stroll around the grounds of the AMFA. There aren’t enough trees in the dog park to offer shade in the summer, but on a brisk sunny day it’s a securely fenced area where young Savvy can zoom recklessly and elderly Paris can snuffle casually. Usually, the other dogs there are a bonus.

Savvy, who weighs 10 pounds, is fearless about romping with bigger dogs—her preferred greeting is to leap on the larger animal’s head— so she immediately took off running with a mid-sized brown and white hound. The dog’s minder, a young woman, was seated nearby, inspecting her phone (that’s normal for the dog-park crowd). After tearing across the park for a while, the larger dog seemed to be getting a bit bossy—maybe a bit irritated—with Savannah. So I made soothing noises to calm down the interaction. So did the hound’s keeper.

This is what people do in dog parks when you sense things might be getting a little rowdy. There were no nips or snaps, only a little high-tail posturing. We had it under control; my husband had picked up mildly over-excited Savvy—who may or may not have been at least 50 percent responsible for the situation—and we were walking away, sheepishly apologetic.

Then another dog park visitor, a stocky middle-aged man who, until that point, had also been inspecting his phone, strode forward and rather aggressively told the young woman that she needed to restrain her dog.

“You dog did the same thing to my dog,” he said, indicating his perfectly nice poodle (whose head Savvy had also jumped on). Aggressive animals must be leashed, he said. It says so on the sign delimiting the dog park rules, he said.

She explained that there was no problem. No one had been hurt or even frightened. (She was right, we were proactively preventing any real altercation, breaking it up before the fight started. Savannah had hardly been in harm’s way.)

That’s when the stocky guy’s demeanor amped up.

“Your dog did the same thing to my dog,” he repeated, implying poor supervision on her part. “Your dog is aggressive.”

“I know my dog,” she said firmly. That’s when he said he was going to call the police.

OK, I thought, that’s it. We’re out of here. If downmarket Nick Offerman here wants to narc out this nice brown and white hound, we aren’t going to stick around to give a statement. It’s too nice a day.

We walked away from the argument.

We were about 150 yards away, at the dog park gate, when matters escalated. We heard a noise and looked back to see him apparently filming the young woman and her dog with his phone’s camera. She retaliated by training her phone on him, and suddenly he slapped it away. He drew back his arm like he was going to strike her, then seemingly thought better of it. Shouting commenced. The dogs danced around each other.

My husband wanted to get in the middle of it and tell the guy to shove off.

Fearing some sort of repercussions on our dogs, I insisted he stay put. Maybe it’s cowardly, but I wanted to remove my little family from the scene as quickly as possible. Some situations require immediate action. Some can be solved with few words and a quiet retreat. If only all confrontations could be settled in such a non-violent way.

We watched from a distance until the young woman was safely out of the park and the middle-aged dude stomped triumphantly back to his seat in the middle of the park, which was now empty but for him and his sweet poodle.

Philip was adrenalized. I felt a little sick to my stomach as we walked around the perimeter of MacArthur Park.

What is wrong with people?

Here we all were in a space that’s meant to surround pet owners and dogs with a safe space for exercise and human/ animal bonding. Instead this disintegrated (alarmingly quickly) into a battle of wills. Over nothing.

I’ll amend that to mention dogs can get aggressive with each other in enclosed spaces like this one. Dominance aggression is common, especially in non-neutered male dogs or dogs approaching puberty. Since dogs are pack animals, and packs need leaders, it is not unusual for a dog, even if unthreatened, to assert himself.

There’s a difference between mock battles (usually involving high-speed chases) and out-andout warfare (usually accompanied by snarling and teeth-baring). If an actual fight erupts, owners must intervene; each person grabs the back feet of one of the dogs and raises them like like a wheelbarrow. With legs up, both dogs are pulled apart.

We didn’t have a dog fight. We had some awkward play that—given the difference in the relative size of the dogs involved—could have developed into a dog fight. (In which Savvy, for all her bravado, would have had no chance.)

I tried to see it from the stocky guy’s perspective. No doubt he loves his poodle, and maybe that poodle had been attacked by another dog in the past. Maybe he had a bad experience with a similar-looking hound.

Or maybe he didn’t like the way the young woman spoke to him. Maybe he thought it was disrespectful. Maybe his exchange with the young woman had triggered him. We don’t know what was in his black box.

I think he thought he was making a display of dominance.