twinkie at Acton park

twinkie waiting for treat, originally uploaded by phaird.

Wow, back at Acton park and SO many people were there. 10am on Sunday is the time that every dog owner in the area shows up with at least one dog. Many have more. Like Twinkie and Hunter (brown dog in the background) are with their owner, a regular on Sundays. I was told that as much as 70 dogs have been counted on one Sunday morning.

Some nice things about this park is location, a wide open space, and water to let the dogs swim. The best thing though is that there are lots of regulars who come every week. People really get to know each other and their dogs. One woman I talked to said she's been bringing her dogs to the park for 7 years. That is a real clear sense of community there. Everyone knew everyone, and even the dogs knew each other.

The most amazing thing that happened was when a puppy arrived. A 3 month old lab showed up and everyone, dogs and humans were all excited. But Hunter didn't want the puppy jumping on him so he gave the puppy a scare. The puppy, being a puppy, ran off yelping back to his owner. The amazing thing that happened next was that almost every dog in the park came to the puppy to see what had happened. Like a pack that all knew and cared about each other, they wanted to know what the problem was. After a moment, they were all back to playing and running but that bonding that these dogs have is pretty amazing to me.