Typically blogs seem to be for fun events or to share sweet stories. This blog post is not so sweet, but I thought I would share the sub-optimal experience we had last night. Not every day is perfect :-)
Yesterday evening was definitely unexpected. The last few days Lemmon has had a surplus of energy (although I don't know how since she already has an abundence of energy) so Matt and I thought it might be nice to take her to the dog park they built downtown to use up some of that puppy excitement. We packed a picnic dinner, our pup and some toys and drove downtown. After struggling to find a parking spot, we headed up to the park. The dogpark is set up to where there are two gates to enter, so that when someone comes in with their dog the other dogs can't just bolt out. So the three of us enter the first gate and naturally all of the other dogs want to meet the new girl. Typically Lemmon tucks her tail under and lets the other give her a sniff and then everyone goes about their business. Last night however was a different story. We open the gate and out comes this bitch of a dog snarling, barking and biting at Lemmon. We tried to pull her back but this dog wouldn’t give up. The owner comes over, a women who may or may not have been on something, and I look at her and firmly say "can you please control your dog." She looks at me and says, "my dog was fine until your dog showed up." Her dog didn't have a collar on so there was no way to pull him back. I'm arguing with the woman while Matt is literally shielding Lemmon from this dog attack. We finally are able to pick up Lemmon and we leave. I told the woman I didn't think she should let her dogs act like that at a community park. We sat outside the gate and tried to calm Lemmon down who is freaking out. I can see the lady trying to get a collar on her dog. She eventually is successful getting him on a leash and takes her two dogs to leave. As she passes us I just stare at her, so irritated that people can be so rude. She looks back and says "don't look at me like that, I will kick your *bleep* *bleep*. She walks away, everyone is staring and I am beyond embarassed at the entire situation. We take Lemmon to the other end and let her in the gate that is away from everyone else, only to have a cop come up and pull Matt out. I immediately thought the worst. Matt starts explaining what happened and two dog owners that were in the park left their dogs and walked over to the cop to tell him that they saw the entire situation and we had done nothing wrong. The cop said the woman seemed crazy but just wanted to check with us. We finally get Lemmon running around, and Matt and I have calmed down. When we got closer to the group of people (who were all regulars) they asked us to give them the full story because they hadn't caught everything and they knew that lady was crazy. They were so sweet. I thought it was really kind that these strangers came up to defend us when they saw the cop pull Matt aside. After all was said and done, I don't think Lemmon even liked the dog park. She just wanders around on her own. She is so independent. Maybe when she is older we will take her back, but for now I think we will put dog park trips on the backburner.
By the time we got back, we put Lemmon to bed, poured a glass of wine and had our picnic dinner at the kitchen table. It may not have been the night we planned, but sometimes that is just how it happens.
