Virginia Fallon

The delights of the dog park

With things working out well with my new dog, I’m back at the park where the neighbourhood walks theirs. It’s a nice park: a great big paddock and some hills; swarms of rabbits and a path through the bush. The thoughtfully placed rubbish bins and poo bag dispensers are particularly nice, too.

Most of the people who come here are usually nice as well, though their dogs are always lovely.

In saying that, there is one I dislike immensely. He’s called Shayde and he’s the type of animal you know means trouble the moment you see him across the paddock where, even from that distance, his every move smacks of menace.

Shayde’s short in stature, stupidly muscled and, when he gets closer, inappropriately aggressive with other males while just plain inappropriate with females. Still, his dog’s pleasant enough. Poor thing.

Anyway, the park is nice. It’s got some cricket training nets to contain toddlers; some exercise equipment for sitting on and, currently, a deliciously decomposing rabbit smack-bang in the middle of the rugby field.

This, of course, delights the dogs, but everything delights the dogs here. Meanwhile, I’m always delighted for another reason, one which the park never fails to deliver on.

Whether some dogs look like their people or some people look like their dogs, the end result is the same, and here the doppelgängers are always out in full force.

Today we’ve got the usual group of poodle pensioners who are all white hair and sweet little faces. They’re keeping their distance from the mastiff mob with their jutting jaws and sturdy shoulders, while over on the other side of the park, the blonde labrador ladies are barking about near the horses.

As usual, the pug people are moving in a lunging little pack, the same with the chihuahua crowd. It’s best to refrain from describing them any further than that because they scare me, unlike the staffy set who are always friendly, smiley albeit ever so slightly manic.

Still, you get the point; the saying is true, which goes some way to explain why I’ve always wanted a greyhound.

The reasons are obvious: the dogs are long and lean, graceful and serene; qualities of which I’ve been robbed by both genetics and temperament.

Instead, I’ve spent a lifetime owning bull terriers who are short and squat, untrainable and prone to eating anything. The sort of dog that people ask “what’s wrong with it?” when they come across one, or just cross the road to avoid it.

Of course, not everyone resembles their dogs. Today there’s a very little man with a very large husky; a creaky older gent with a bouncing shepherd and, recently, a tiny woman last seen flying from the end of her great dane’s leash.

Also, there’s me, now in possession of a huntaway who is loud, occasionally condescending and inclined to tell everyone else what to do. Physically, he’s seen better days. Obviously, we are nothing alike.

You may have guessed that all of this is just a very long-winded way of saying it’s column-writing day and I don’t have anything to write about. No ideas, no opinions, no nothing. And it’s not because there’s nothing happening – dead kids, the return of live export, Amanda Luxon's arms – it’s just that I don’t have the words.

Here in the park the words come easily, things like “sorry!” or “leave it!” or “excuse me, but you forgot to pick this up”.

But even if you don’t have a dog the park is a nice place to visit. It’s nice to go somewhere that makes you laugh when you're so damn close to doing the opposite.