Another Two Cents' Worth
I'll just leave this here and hope for the best.
My husband and I take our one year old GSD, Ben, to the dog park every day. It's February and we've been going every day since October, when we got Ben. We don't have a fenced yard (apartment dwellers), so this is what we do to keep him active and well-exercised. I won't say there haven't been some incidents, because there will always be issues with using a public access park--he did get a bad bite once, but luckily, the owner of the other dog paid for his vet bill! However, for how often we go (every single day, probably have missed five days total in the 4 months we've had our dog), the usual situation is a pleasant time for Ben. He doesn't always play with other dogs (he loves the chuck-it), but there are usually friendly dogs to play with when he does want for company. He LOVES the dog park and can't wait to go every morning. We probably spend at least two hours there every day. (Like I said, no yard at home).
The dog park we go to is a small (one acre) neighborhood park and we know most of the dogs by now. The "regular" crowd has been very friendly and supportive of us "newbie" dog owners and, maybe because they are regulars, their dogs are mostly well-socialized dogs. It _is_ usually busy on the weekends, but we can go early or later in the evening and avoid the "sunny afternoon" crowds. Typically on weekdays, Ben arrives at the dog park right after school drop-off for my son. At 7:45 a.m., probably only the diehards are hanging out anyway. It may be an atypical park in the sense that it is very community-strong, with dog parkers doing the maintenance in the park (light grounds upkeep, mulch spreading, clearing paths, etc) and many of the people who go there are really invested in keeping it clean and safe.
My family loves our local dog park very much. It's dear to our hearts because it's been a place where our dog, who is a rescue and needed some serious rehabilitation, has flourished. He's gone from a sad, emaciated stray (a very "average size" 9 month old male GSD, about six feet long, 25 inches at the shoulder, but only weighing 54 lbs!!) from the local pound, a guy who could barely move around, to a strong, confident, happy boy (73 lbs at one year old!) who is friendly and loves to run and play for hours. Most people who take their dogs to our dog park know Ben and, as I said, have been very encouraging of our efforts to bring him back to health. He's been happy, he socializes with people and dogs every day, and he's put on some good weight and muscle. The dog park is where we've bonded with him over games of chuck-it, frisbee, and the flirt pole. It's a pretty little place too, with lots of soft mulch in the running area and even a small "trail" to walk.
That said, it's been becoming clear to me over the past few weeks that Ben is starting to outgrow the dog park. Not that he doesn't still love it...he does--it's "his" space and he is always super excited to go--but things are changing.
Ben is just over a year old now. Although he is not overly demonstrative (he doesn't mind being petted, but he'd rather lie close by, than ON us), he is a healthy, strong, and confident dog who is even-tempered and passionately devoted to our family.
So, the dog park. It's obvious to me (and other park-goers have commented) that Ben is a whole lot more than your average "just there to wrestle and dig" or "fetch a few times" doggy.
[Note: I'm going to out myself right now as a new dog owner and first time GSD owner. I'm also that idiot who emo-adopted a large, very sick animal because it was obvious he was going to die in the pound. I had no real idea what "a Shepherd" was or could be. He could have been a terrible, neurotic, or vicious animal (the city animal control does not temperament test at all). Luckily, it worked out anyway.]
Why Ben might be outgrowing our favorite little dog park:
1. Having never been to an obedience class, Ben is, and always was, easily the best dog park dog with commands: sit/down/turn around/come/bring it/look, etc...SO MUCH BETTER than the other dogs at our dog park. I don't say this out of smugness, but to illustrate what I saw as the difference between Ben (the only "dog park regular" who is a GSD) and many other breeds and mixes. Where some pet parents struggled with basic commands, all we had to do was ask Ben a few times and give some snacks and he'd usually get it. He likes to learn new things all the time. ALL THE TIME. (My husband is trying to teach him "smile" right now.) Since my husband and I are both new dog owners, we could not attribute his awesome grasp of commands to our own abilities.
[I don't mean to say he's some kind of perfect dog--Ben still has the stray forager mentality and can't be trusted with counter tops or the garbage. He's just "awake" in a way that a lot of dogs don't seem to be.]
Okay, Ben likes to learn. Nice as they are, no one else at our dog park does much training there. Mostly the playtime at the dog park, if there are a lot of others, is unstructured roughhousing, which Ben isn't very interested in. I don't think anyone participates in training clubs, that I know of, either. We get a lot of good info on nutrition and dog toys, even cold weather gear, from our chummy dog park friends (and I do love them). But it's kind of a dead end in terms of more advanced training knowledge. [Pardon me if this is all old hat; I'm a newbie with no yard. So the dog park is my main source of experience.)
2. Ben is a sociable guy--he likes other dogs, large and small, but he is not the dog to "go mill around" while Mommy and Daddy chat and drink coffees. He will play and run for fifteen to twenty minutes when we arrive (longer if there's only one or two dogs and he knows them well, he's not into the dog-mob wrestling AT ALL), but once we start a game, he is "on"--this guy wants the chuck-it and training games for a solid hour or more. He doesn't want to play with other dogs during that time; he just wants specific, structured, playtime and a lot of it.
It's getting to be a problem because he gets annoyed if another dog horns in on his game. He doesn't attack them, but he does chase them away. Given that this is a small space, it's hard to do a lot of chuck-it or training without other dogs coming to find out what's going on. So lately we can't even take out the chuck-it unless the park is nearly empty or the other dogs are uninterested in fetching games. If we can't do games, it's hard to get him the level of exercise he needs (a LOT now), because he
doesn't and won't "just run around", and then he's restive at home.
Like I said, I'm a new GSD owner, but I can see that Ben's needs have shifted from rehabilitation to something more. I don't think I have it in me (or that Ben has it in him--he's still building confidence) to do something really serious, like bite work. However, I'm looking into maybe rally, or tracking, maybe even herding classes--something that will give him a job he loves and where he can realize his full potential. I view this as akin to putting my kid in soccer and baseball to keep him active and stimulated. I know the AKC holds a lot of these classes and I hope to get Ben enrolled in something like this. Because he's a rescue, he doesn't have papers, but we think we can get him into the "pure breed alternative listing" (PAL?) or whatever that is, that allows him to participate in their rally and obedience classes.
I've also thought about training him to run beside a bicycle, but I have heard that he shouldn't go for long runs until he's older than two. Also, I'm not sure jog/runs are as mentally stimulating as training classes of some kind.
I still love our dog park and want to continue spending time there. We must, as long as we live in this apartment (again, no yard). But I want to shift it to a supplemental "social" outlet rather than Ben's main outlet. I still think that socialization is so important, especially living in a big city environment. I want him to cheerfully greet people who want to say hi on the street or at the cafe or restaurant (and because we live in the dog-tastic city of Atlanta and he's turned into a beautiful guy, a LOT of people want to say hi), to be able to sit quietly through an outdoor poetry reading (which he has done admirably), and behave himself with other dogs in public. So, yes, dog parks, especially if they are situated in cafe/restaurant areas like ours, can help with that (I think), but it is clear lately that my dog needs more than the morning roll in the mud.
I'm only a four-month owner and this is only my experience. Take from it what you will. Also, if anyone has advice on fun classes/etc, I would love to hear it. My husband and I newbies, but we are passionate about our good-good boy.