A Slow Dance Past Le Bark Park

I feel sorry for people with small dogs.

Whenever I go to one of my weekly softball games, I pass by a pretty snazzy looking dog park with a high-brow name like Le Bark. This park is separated into a ‘large dog’ park and a ‘small dog’ park; my thoughts are that this is to prevent the small dogs from becoming an appetizer for the larger dogs, but I don’t really know for sure.

Now, I always see the large dog park first on my approach to the softball field. The ‘large dog’ park is always filled with, well, large dogs and their owners (sometimes it is difficult to tell the two apart). There are always small children frolicking with Rover™ (actually, Rover™ may be mauling them but, from my point of view, they look like they’re having fun), while other children and adults are throwing Frisbees or tennis balls for Fido® to catch. It’s all quite magical, in my opinion. The sun is shining and all seems well.

And then the clouds turn grey as I drive by the ‘small dog’ park. Oppressiveness hangs heavy in the air, as I watch the two or three melancholy individuals standing in the midst of, what appear to be, plump, t-shirt-wearing hotdogs running aimlessly in circles. There is no joy in the ‘small dog’ park. There are no smiles, no Frisbees, no tennis balls; only spasmodic descendants of rats, running around in circles, occasionally doing the slow dance with an owner’s leg. The ‘small dog’ owners can be seen looking longingly at the ‘big dog’ park, wishing, so I assume, that they could feed their small dog to a larger dog in order to have an excuse to get a large dog.

All of these thoughts go through my mind in the ten or so seconds that it takes me to drive past the Le Bark dog park.

Man, I’m glad I have large dogs.

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