Pit Bull Play Date

Pennsylvania decided to have its own tribute to global warming while we were in town, and last week the temperatures hit the upper 60s for two days. This presented a perfect opportunity for us to take our dogs to meet Butterfinger’s dad’s dogs, and have a doggy play date in the park. We loaded the pups in the van and headed to Poppa Butterfinger’s house, unsure whether our guys were going to warm up to their canine relatives. Pops Butterfinger also has two pit mixes, a female named Miso and a male named Rocky, so we really had our work cut out for us. Tucker and Guapo are generally wonderfully behaved dogs, but in line with their breed characteristics, they are oftentimes choosy with their puppy friends, and apparently they despise squirrels.

The key to a successful pitty meeting is to introduce the dogs slowly on a leash, making sure to keep their attention on you for the first few minutes of the encounter. This is really important if you plan to let them off-leash later because you want to be sure they are paying attention to your voice for direction and commands. After a lot of sniffing and a bunch of positive tail wags we let Tucker and Guapo off their leads so they could check out their new environment, and engage in the fierce sniffing that dogs do best. After what seemed to be an hour of sniffing and bodily violation we determined that they were all going to get on just fine, despite Miso being her usual manic and bipolar self.

The initial meeting was a success and once all notions of personal space were destroyed, all the pit bull crew wanted to do was wrestle! Instead of letting the dogs loose inside the house and risking destruction of epic proportions, we took the dogs for a short walk to a small park down the street from the house. There was a noticeable difference in the on-leash skills of the two sets of dogs. While I am not proposing that Guapo and Tucker are angelic on leashes by any means, they definitely had their day in the sun on that day compared to their furry comrades. Miso spent the entirety of the one-block stroll choking herself out and snorting, while Rocky preferred a more silent airway obstruction method sans choking and groaning. I was fearful that some doggy CPR might be needed if we chose to go to a location further away so we stopped at the first tot lot we passed.

Once at the park we managed to scare off the two other dog owners that were their with their dogs off leash. I must surmise that they sensed our satanic presence from a quarter mile away, because once we got within 100 yards of them they headed for the hills – more room for us then! Within a couple of minutes of our arrival all four dogs were off-leash gallivanting around and showing off their best skills and traits. Rocky and Tucker became instant buddies, probably because of their similarity in size and play style, while Miso and Guapo used their speed to run circles around us all.

Guapo soon tired of socializing, as he is actually a person trapped inside the body of a brindle pit bull, and chose to spend the rest of his time going person to person and begging to be petted. Once Guapo was out of the picture, Miso decided to join forces with Rocky and pick on the lil guy with the bum leg. Tucker was a really good sport about all of Miso and Rocky’s taunting, even the stereotypical dog humping behavior which, at one point in time, seemed as if it was never going to end. Eventually the crazy humpers let off and the crew spent the latter part of their date chasing sticks and snuggling in the grass, a perfect end to a perfect pseudo-winter day. I do have video of this doggy love fest so feel free to email me if interested : )