• Tweet
• Email
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Email

by Erik Hare

August has his opinions, especially first thing in the morning.  Any other dog has to go out for a morning walk, but he needs his daily bark.  He wants nothing more than to go outside and tell the world that he’s here, awake for the day.

The rest of the day, his sharp “Woof!” probably means something else.  It’s one of his friends out in the park, either Barkley or Jasper or Leonardo or Pete or Glory or Daisy.  When we hear that, it’s time to take him out to the center of the small urban park that we all share.

Dog people all know each other, or at least we know each other’s dogs.  We may not remember each other’s names, but we all know Jasper’s Mom on sight – she’s the one flinging tennis balls so that her furry burst of energy can work himself out for the day.

The community is made up of many people, but those of us who see each other the most often are dog people.  Our fur children sniff each other in fairly rude ways while we dance around trying to keep the leashes straight and talk. Gossip and more formal news are passed and we all know what’s been going around the park, just as our dogs got the news by sniffing the ground.  Who passed by this tree last?  Who got a new job?  It’s all a matter of perspective, really.

You’ll find this is true in just about any city.  Dogs are the center of a community because we have no choice but to spend a lot of time just hanging out at the tall end of the leash.  We’re on dog time, not bizzy people time, so we absorb what’s going on around us in a way that the rest of the community just doesn’t.  The same thing happens in Mears Park as it does in Irvine Park and all the other neighborhood parks across Saint Paul and everywhere else.

The city of Calgary, Alberta has off-leash dog parks scattered through the neighborhoods to encourage this kind of thing, in case it needs to be encouraged.  They found that a good community of dog owners encourages a strong community overall.  It’s not a big mystery.  Dogs make us all take a little bit more time and require us to be just a shade more social, just like our dogs.  After all, the time in the park is the highlight of their day.

As the days get shorter we’ll all spend a little less time outside being the kind of people our dogs want us to be.  Winter is tough for dogs and dog owners because we just don’t feel like lingering as much as when it’s warm.  But we still do from time to time, all the same.  Still, it’s one of the things dog people find they miss most as it gets colder.

But we still hang out from time to time.  August still has his morning bark where he announces himself to the world for one more day.  Sometimes, that gets a friend to come over and we all start chatting in our own ways.  That’s what community is really all about.