Thread: Dog Park rules
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Old September 17th, 2019, 10:10 PM
Bentham Bentham is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2019
Posts: 1
Dog Park rules

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum and to Canada. I have recently relocated to Montreal from Barbados with my small well-behaved dog.

Today I tried to take my dog to the local dog park. While approaching it, I saw several dogs, mostly large, running of the leash and playing. When I tried to open the gate several owners came up to me and said "look, these large dogs are not good with small dogs" implying that I cannot enter the park because I had a small dog and they had no intention to control their dogs. I said: "but is it not a general dog park where any dog can come?". They said: "Yes, but it is mostly a large-dog park". I asked it it was officially recognized as such. They said "no, but only large dogs come here". I asked if there was any special time slot allocated for large dogs. They said that no, they could come any time. I asked if that meant that I could not come to a city dog park with my dog. They said that I could come only if my dog could bark off their large dogs. At this point I tried to take my dog into my hands for better protection, to enter the park and to see how it goes. When I lifted my dog, all those large dogs clearly expressed signs of aggression and their owners said : "especially do not lift your dog, this will make them more angry". I showed them the sign dog park rules that were clearly saying that all dogs over 20 kilos should be on the leash. The answer was that dogs did not have to be on the leash at the park.

This all seemed outrageous to me. Basically, their message was : "you cannot come to the city park with your dog because we do not control and do not want to make any effort to control our aggressive dogs". Still, as a newcomer I decided to check the city regulations. They are rather vague and do not specifically address my situation at the dog park. However, they do contain general rules that the owner must control their pet at all times, that a pet should not pose a threat to humans or other permitted pets, to piece and security, and that the owner of the dog that attempts to attack a human or a pet must report his dog within 48 hours for assessment if it is a potentially dangerous dog.

I guess all this still applies to dogs at dog park.

If I am right, what do you think would be the best course of action?
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