The dog park pack

Jack, Chico the chocolate Chow Chow, Minstrel, Gwen and Ryker

 

 

 

When we lived in Madison our back yard was very small, as you can see in the picture.  You could fit 5 dogs and a picnic table in the yard at the same time, but the dogs had to be on the table. 

Therefore, we frequented the dog parks daily to get our exercise and made many good friends there, including Chico and Minstrel.   Today the dog park pack has become known to my kids through their dad's story telling.    They have many adventures, some true, some fantastic, but they are generally heroic and hardly ever bring their owner a horrible huge dead rat (a true-life Jack adventure).    If they growl at skateboarders it is only because the boarders are a criminal gang intent on world domination.   Not because they are silly dogs who hate the noise of skateboards.  

One of our favorite stories (I mean, er, one of  the kids' favorite stories)  involves a small ball of blond fluff named Smurf.   She was a Chow puppy that was being temporarily cared for by Chico's owner.    Smurf was not a very regal or dignified name for such a noble pedigreed beast, so Dane temporarily renamed her "Feng".     Feng was on a flexi lead at the park because she had no known recall.   Dane pleaded her case to run free with the other dogs, saying "How fast could those short little legs really go, after all?"   Surprisingly fast, it turned out.    No sooner was the leash unsnapped than Feng waved her poofy little tail and lit out across the park in a bee line away from us.    We eventually managed to surround her and coax her back, and that was the end of little Feng's freedom- back to the flexi for her.   

Ryker, the dog on the right in the picture, was named Wrenwood Jacks or Better.  He was Jack's son,  a full brother to Jazz.  He lived with us when he was between homes after being given up by his first home and before he went to live with our friend's parents.