 What's going on guys? Tom Davis here, America's Canon Educator. Here's Hawk, Hawk's our shop dog. We get a lot of questions on Hawk. He lives here, he protects this place and he chews on bones and we love him. But anyway, I put this video together guys because it's a question I get all the time and this is a quick segment with one of my out-of-state clients recently. And I just wanted to put content out there for you guys. It's something different, it's not a before and after but it is a question we get all the time about dog parks. Should you go, should you not go, et cetera. So this is some information on dog parks. I hope you guys like it. Let's get into the video. Do you believe in dog parks or dog parks? Dog parks, good question. Dog parks are, I love the idea. What a fantastic idea of a government agency or a state or local agency saying, hey, this is an area for dogs to be able to run and do what they wanna do. But the unfortunate part with dog parks is it's insanely irregulated. It's not regulated at all. And so there's two things, there's a running joke that we always say is there's two things you never find in a dog park, a veterinarian and a dog trainer. Just because for us as dog trainers, we collect data, that's our job. We collect data, we give out information and we take it all in. We're trying to figure out what's going on out there outside these training room doors and all of the people who have had incidences with dog parks, it's just so traumatic for dogs. There's people who literally go out, purchase a dog, adopt a dog, foster dog, they don't know anything and they think in their head, a dog park is for dogs. That's a good place, right? It sounds good, right? But they bring them there, they don't know anything about the dog, they let them go, there's a fight, there's a kill, there's a harassment, there's whatever, there's a sick dog, whatever. I mean, there's so many different underlying things that again, you're going to an area where you don't really, you may know one or two people out of 20, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 people and a lot of times it becomes very fearful for dogs, they sit in the corner and they get harassed and they get bullied by other dogs and- No, he didn't get bullied, he was bullied. Right, so it becomes, so I love the idea of dog parks. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when something happens. I can almost promise you that. And there's certain dogs that thrive in dog parks but it'll be one out of 20 in my opinion because the other 20 dogs hate it, they feel insecure, they feel vulnerable, it creates all these different stressors and anxiety and reactivity, monkey see, monkey do, they're eating poop, they're jumping on people, they're jumping the fence, they're barking to the fence, it creates all this and people are sitting there talking like we are emailing and whatever and listen, if you meet up with some friends at a park and they're running around, it's different, I'm not saying like don't go socialize with your dog but when you go to a place that's, it's like going to a public pool. It's like if you have to, okay, cool, cool down but you know that there's gonna be all sorts of different things going on in there that you probably aren't comfortable with. So, and again, I also have clients that live all over the world and they tell me, hey, in Australia we have this 400 acre dog park, we don't see anybody, good, go to a dog park, I don't care. It's just my opinion and my opinion isn't like the say all of everything, it's just as a professional my job is to tell my clients, here's my opinion, here's the information I've collected over the years and for the most part dog parks create more bad behaviors and it's only a matter of when, not if. They do something or they get something done to them or it's a mess. So there's a lot that we could talk about about dog parks guys but that was a quick segment on talking to a client about dog parks and what they can do and what they can't do and it's really important for people to read between the lines. Any content that really anybody puts out, you have to just take what makes sense to you and apply what makes sense to you. When I say dog parks, typically these are big cities with lots of dogs, bless you, very small spaces. I also have clients that live in Australia, Oregon where they have 120 fenced in acres and they never see dogs. So you just have to realize that some of the information may not be applicable or even be relevant to what the dog parks are in your area but like I said in this video and like I always say is there's just so much unregulation going on at dog parks. People just not paying attention. A lot of people just adopt a dog or foster a dog. They don't know the dog at all. They don't know their history and everyone just thinks because it does make sense that they should just bring their dog to a dog park because that's what they do, they can go and play and have fun and chase each other around and relinquish all their exercise and it'll be great but what if a dog doesn't do well with a dog park? What if they get aggressive? What if they have a traumatic experience that then which is what we see a lot which then makes them very uncomfortable with other dogs in the future and they have PTSD and because they've been rushed by 20, 30, 40, 50 dogs at once or whatever it is or even two and it makes that bad experience because they don't know that dogs and the introduction process was not ideal and not beneficial for them. So there's just so much but one thing that I have found that if your dog goes to dog park, goes to a dog park and has a lot of fun and gets a lot of exercise and runs and plays and has just a magical time, one thing that I have found is if all of those things apply and it's great, the problem is, is what about the other dog that comes in that is not friendly and the owners didn't know or they're traveling through and they see a dog park and they pull in and they let their dog go and they don't know and then they attack your dog or your dog gets hurt or beat up or in a fight or ganged up on. So it's not necessarily just if your dog doesn't like other dogs don't go or if your dog's unsure don't go. You also have to understand the huge exposure and the huge risk that you're taking by letting your dog go and play at a dog park because your dog loves it, enjoys it and it's beneficial to them. It's the other people that you don't know. It's the dogs you don't know. It's the people passing through. It's the people who are sending emails and their dog is just a product of somebody really busy that doesn't have time to train them or understand their needs and desires. It's the dog sitting in the corner getting completely bullied and because they're not attacking or being aggressive then their owners continue to bring them hopefully and hoping that they open up one day and it's really just traumatic and they really don't wanna be there. So I do a lot of, in our facility here guys which here at the upstate, would you just, I'm trying to talk to my people. This is Sunday, it's our off day so he gets to hang around and he just loves attention so that's what he's doing. But anyway, we have a daycare in the back. We have anywhere from 30 to 40 dogs. It's completely fenced in, all turfed, it's beautiful. It's something that we wanted to offer our community. We're a dog training facility but we do have the daycare and surprisingly I would say 50% of the dogs who come in for daycare evaluation which is similar to, I guess a dog park, don't do well. So a lot of them, I'd say 50% of them actually fail. They don't do well. And one thing that always surprises me is dog owners become very discouraged or if it's their first day and we call and we say, hey, you should come pick up your dog or just so you know, we always alert people pretty much immediately when we make a decision to either pull them from daycare or it's not a good fit for them. I find surprisingly dog owners get very surprised and taken back by that. Don't feel discouraged that your dog doesn't do well in a daycare setting or your dog doesn't do well at a dog park or whatever but I wanted to just throw this video together just for you guys because it's a little bit of content in between some of my other videos. If you guys like this and you like these little one-off segments on my opinions, on frequently asked questions like dog parks and other things, I'll do more of these. Just leave a comment in the comments below. Like this video. Of course, subscribe to my channel. I put videos out every single week. Some of them are like this and most of them are actually tutorials with actual dogs and their clients. So anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful day. I appreciate you guys watching and Hawk. You guys wanna see Hawk for a second? Everyone, we get a lot of requests. Let me show you Hawk. He is a Belgian Malinois and he just absolutely, come here Hawk. He loves attention. He just loves people so much and he's a lot of fun but you know, Malinois, they're also a lot of work but come here Hawk, out.