Thursday, January 19, 2012

Dog tale


Tucson isn’t as dog friendly as Salt Lake City.  In Tucson, a lot of local parks don't allow leashed dogs and some Farmers Markets are making dogs off limits.  Yesterday we saw one of the reason why that happens.
We’d just left Sabino Canyon, which doesn't even allow dogs in the parking lot (so our visit was short, since Cooper was with us) and were looking for a place to walk Cooper.  We found Smiling Dog Ranch, a big, fenced, shady, dog park in one of the city parks, with lots of room for dogs to run off leash. It also had a great hiking path that we were more interested in, as Cooper isn’t especially interested in doggy socializing that is the big attractions of off-leash parks for many dog owners.
We stopped to talk with two women, one with an Australian Shepard, the other a Doberman Pincher.  When the Doby playfully bumped into me, I told the owner that his head felt like it was made of steel and she laughingly said she called him “Steel Plate.”   Then Steel Plate mowed down the owner of the Australian Shepherd.  Flat-on-her-back lady had a hard time getting up, but was OK.
Jim and Cooper at the entrance to Smiling Dog Ranch. 
Cooper and one of the very nice dogs we met at Smiling Dog Ranch, a pretty standard Poodle named Ella.
One more dog park photo. 

4 comments:

  1. Reminds me of your buffalo (bison) story. Again, Cooper looks happy.

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  2. yeah, unfortunately due to the culture here, a great deal of people have untrained and out of control dogs and they seems not to care... Udall park has a lovely dog park with well trained dogs (at least the morning crowd is wonderful, and by morning I mean we get there around 5:45 and stay till about 7) In Tucson in general, There are too many people with untrained animals that are too big for their owners to control. But this park is in a good area with careful owners.

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  3. yeah, unfortunately due to the culture here, a great deal of people have untrained and out of control dogs and they seems not to care... Udall park has a lovely dog park with well trained dogs (at least the morning crowd is wonderful, and by morning I mean we get there around 5:45 and stay till about 7) In Tucson in general, There are too many people with untrained animals that are too big for their owners to control. But this park is in a good area with careful owners.

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  4. HI Alissa! I just saw your comment. Thanks for the tip re: Udall Park. We will definitely try it when we are in Tucson next winter.

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