Dog park drama

We have been loving this wonderful weather. We took Mina to the Edmonds off-leash park agin last weekend, and had quite a good time. There was a strange incident, though; as we were coming in, a dog fight broke out between the double gates leading into the park. We were still too far off to see all the details, but one of the dogs' owners went into the park, and the other, a strained-looking woman, was sitting on the ground between the gates. I asked if she was all right, and she said she'd be ok, so we waited a few minutes and then went on into the off-leash area.

When we got in, the tide was coming in, so the waves were higher than they'd been the first time Mina visited; it took her a while to get used to the more forceful water washing over her. While we were luring her into the waves with her beloved squeaky balls, a pair of big dogs, and one little white dog, seemed to be out of control in our area. The little dog approached other dogs of every size aggressively, and the bigger ones pushed in to where we were playing and just barked and barked at poor Mina, right in her face.

The bully dogs' owner turned out to be the same woman who'd had the encounter at the gates. She sat far back from the water, tepidly calling her dogs now and then (they didn't really listen). I noticed that the woman who had been sitting on the ground was now talking to the bad dogs' owner; she had some notepaper and seemed to be getting contact information. We speculated that she might have been hurt in the fray earlier.

We kept trying to play, and Mina was joined by a sweet little corgi named Wally and his owner, so we threw balls for both pups, even though the corgi couldn't go very deep. But the big dogs kept pushing in and barking at both little dogs, until finally I went up the beach and asked if the woman could please control her dogs. She finally leashed them all up and left the park, to the relief of several other dog owners. We couldn't believe how blasé she was about letting her unruly dogs pick fights with other pups.

After that, we all had a much better time; Mina made several new friends, donated one of her squeaky balls to a big friendly mutt named Cooper, and got just soaking wet, as always. She was exhausted in another hour or so of running, so we bundled her up and headed out. As we were leaving, we saw the injured woman talking to an Edmonds police officer at his car. I stopped by to see if she was doing ok, and whether she needed any collaboration regarding the rude woman and her dogs. She said she was fine; she'd re-injured herself, she said, but would be ok. They didn't need us to hang around, so we left. It really was a nice day, despite all the drama. Mina loves the water and on a hot day, it's just the thing for a little black dog.

We haven't made much progress on finishing the front and back doors, though. What can I say? When it's nice out, we just want to hang out in the sun. But we'll have the upcoming long weekend to put on the last coat of varnish, and we can schedule to get these things installed. Finally! I don't regret playing a bit, anyway. It's finally summer, after such a long, cold spring!