Friday, December 18, 2009

At the Dog Park

Seattle is known as having a large population of loving dog owners, many with several dogs. We have several nice dog parks in the area. A group of volunteers, COLA, keeps the parks clean. The park we mostly go to is called Golden Gardens Dog Park, only about a half mile from our house. The park is on a hill overlooking Golden Gardens on Shilshole Bay which is just gorgeous any time of the year.

The park can get muddy at times even with a thick covering of bark and wood shavings. That is why we think it attracts the best people and dogs. These dog owners are not so concerned about their dogs getting muddy and of course the dogs love it. We go often and we always hear, “Here come the Basenjis!” from those people who know us. Our dogs get muddy but like many basenjis mud and dirt seems to quickly disappear and by the time we get back to the car they are all clean again.

Our BRAT dog Sanji hated the park for the years. We didn’t take him often but he would always ignore the other dogs and walk, never run around the perimeter of the park and then ask to go home. Funny thing was that we never saw him ever run. That was before we got Gumbo as a puppy. Then things changed slowly and now after two years Sanji begs to go to the dog park. Sanji is almost 10 years old and has learned to play with other dogs and run like a normal Basenji. Sometimes a puppy with a BRAT dog will do the trick!


Sanji playing with a little shaggy dog.

Gumbo loves to play and he loves almost all the dogs, especially if they are good runners and he can lead them in a dog chase.

He also mediates when necessary.


If you would like to see many more pictures of “our” dog park go to http://atthedogpark.info. Photographing the dogs is my favorite time.

Marj Baker
manxy2@comcast.net

1 comment:

  1. I love the photos. Sanji looks like our basenji, Taz.

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