This morning Ralphie seemed a little different than his normal self. I noticed him licking Ollie's ears and oh boy I'm pretty sure Ollie was enjoying that. This is something I've never seen before but nevertheless I thought it was very sweet. Or was it a control thing going on.
We got to the dog park earlier than normal this morning. I wanted to get an early start because I had so many errands to run today. There were literally tons of dogs there today. As we entered the park gate Ralphie was acting very strange...his tail tucked under his back legs and rather scared upon entering. Then he took off going after a furry, hairy type of dog. He's never attracted to the long hair dogs. He was trying to aggressively hump this dog and at the same time wanting to wrestle him. Ralphie was getting way to playful and eventually I was able to pull Ralphie off the dog and directed him over the bridge to another play area.
Now in this other area there were at least 20 dogs gathered around playing with each other and some just relaxing. All of us humans just stand around chit-chat and watch our dogs at play. Then I see Ralphie walking towards to bridge back to the first area. He looked like a lost dog. I called him and he turned around in almost a look of relief. He found his Mama! So we went back to the big playground of dogs and again Ralphie strayed away looking bewildered trying to find me. I was standing right there, but with all the people and dogs he probably lost track of me. I approached Ralphie to reassure him I'm there and won't leave.
Then Ralphie got a hold of stick. With this stick in his mouth, he had a group of dogs chasing him. He just loves to be chased! The dogs eventually lost interest in the chase. Ralphie stretched out to relax guarding his stick in front of him. A couple of dogs tried to steal the stick but Ralphie growled them away...which I don't like at all! Before I was able to grab the stick and dispose of it, Rambo, a pit-bull who Ralphie plays with all the time quickly dived for the stick in front of Ralphie. Ralphie growled, Rambo growled and before you know it there was a big dog brawl between Ralphie and Rambo. It happened so fast. I'm not even sure who had the stick at that point. It was scary! The two dogs were in the bushes in a serious dog fight...growling, snarling, teeth out, rolling around. I was screaming and Rambo's owner threw his whole body on top of Rambo to pull him away. Rambo is a big strong 90 pound pit-bull and it took his owner a lot of strength to break it up. After the breakup, we checked out the dogs...no bites, cuts, or blood. However, Rambo's owner's legs were scratched with blood dripping from the bushes, shells, and gravel while breaking the dogs up.
This incident was very upsetting for me and I'm sure Rambo's owner was quite upset as well. Truly Ralphie and Rambo are BFFs, but today portrayed how you really can't trust any dog. Rambo is a good dog. Ralphie is a good dog. But sometimes good dogs do bad things. I feel Ralphie was on edge that brought out this hostile behavior. I have no idea why this happened today...maybe dogs have moods too, maybe Ralphie was overwhelmed by all the dogs, maybe he just didn't want to be at the dog park today. But whatever it is ... thankfully it's over.
Ralphie seems extra calm this afternoon. Doesn't really want to go outside. He's sleeping on the couch now. All I can say... dog fights are very, very scary ... very upsetting. I pray this won't happen again.
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