Mango unleashed

Mango in pursuit.

Making full use of the last few remaining sunny days of autumn, Smelly and i took Mango to his second Shiba Meetup yesterday afternoon. When we arrived, we noticed that Mango’s sister Hana was already there. Immediately after unleashing Mango, he started to play with Hana, chasing after her. At times, he was playing a little rough so he had to be reined in. There were probably 20 other Shibas but Mango chose to go after Hana. It was a little embarrassing. When Hana finally gave what Mango deserved, i was actually relieved to see this “bully” being taught a lesson.

This afternoon, again the weather was dry and sunny, we decided to take Mango to Westcrest Park, the nearest off-leash dog park in West Seattle, prior to taking him to his biweekly bath. We noticed that most of the dogs in the park were much larger dogs. On entering the off-leash park, two big dogs came by to greet Mango. I stood between the dogs and Mango, to make sure that Mango was comfortable with them. But it was difficult and the dogs managed to surround us. Mango started growling at them. He appeared to be uncomfortable at being confronted by bigger dogs. Strangely enough, whenever Mango sees a bigger dog during our walks, he always put himself in the play pose, wanting to play.

When the two bigger dogs finally went away, i unleashed Mango hesitantly. Initially, Mango started running on his own, not really chasing after any of the dogs. Within a minute or two, a few larger dogs started to run after Mango. The lead large dog caught up with Mango and managed to trip Mango, causing him to tumble on the ground. Mango became extremely defensive and was showing his teeth. At the Shiba meetups, we have never seen Mango behaving in such a manner. I wonder if he was not comfortable being chased by bigger dogs. It’s possible that the bigger dog’s play was a little too rough for Mango. As we were walking out of the off-leash park, we noticed that Mango was limping a little. Fortunately, that went away as soon as we got out of the park.

We took Mango out of the park and played in the open field, with a 30-ft leash attached to his regular leash so that it’s easier for us to slow him down if he attempts to venture too far away from us. After playing catch with him for about 15 minutes, we headed straight to The Wash Dog for Mango’s bath.