Big Dog and Small Dogs Progress?

[Cessena]

So I've been taking my sight impaired 90 lb husky vlad to the dog park. He's not great with small dogs, but the dog park we go to does have a "small dog" area which I keep him out of. Unfortunately some small dog owners do like to have their smaller dogs out with the big dogs for some reason or another.

Now I can tell when Vlad is getting too interested in one of the smaller dogs because he will pretty obviously start obsessively following them around. I usually get between them and try to distract him, and if that doesn't work we'll either go into one of the fenced off areas or go home.

This weekend he was actually pretty much ignoring a couple pugs and another smaller dog that were hanging out, until one of the pugs started playing fetch (pugs playing fetch is pretty hilarious to watch.) He then started trying to play with the pug, bowing and chasing. The pug, like most of the other small dogs was NOT INTERESTED in playing with Vlad. So I let the Pug try to tell him off, but Vlad did not back off (smacked him upside the head pretty hard) so I removed him from the park.

Is that the right thing to do? Or should I just not go to the park at all? He seems to be getting better at not bothering the smaller dogs, but he wont really play with any of the dogs the same size as him. (Mid sized dogs he's more playful with.)

 

[lizzybeth727]

I think that was the right thing to do. To get better at interracting with small dogs, he does need practice to learn how to do it. Since it sounds like you are ready to intervene, and it doesn't sound like he gets aggressive with the small dogs, it seems to me like it is a good idea to keep distracting him when small dogs are around so that he doesn't fixate on them, and then remove him if he is inappropriate.