Dog Park Dharma

After I rescued Louis, friends said I’d find a new social life at the dog park. My puppy and I would be welcomed into a community of dog owners, they said, and I loved this idea. My friend Lynn told me her widowed brother-in-law met his next wife at a dog park, which made me love the idea even more. I’d been single for a long time. My armor was starting to melt. I fantasized about joining the pack of San Francisco dog owners every morning at Ocean Beach, a short drive down the hill from my apartment in the Outer Richmond. My little wiener dog and I would gather at dawn with the band of Doodle-owners and Corgiphiles on the sand below the Cliff House. Upswell at high tide, we’d herd our dogs to the roar of waves and barking pinnipeds offshore. All of this satisfied my dream of connecting with a cool San Francisco subculture. After this bracing start to our day, I imagined, we’d go home and suit-up for our day jobs.

  As it turned out, I only got Louis out to Ocean Beach once. That foggy afternoon, my shivering black puppy was no match for the walls of water barreling in on us. If any other dogs were available for play, waves demolished their voices and gusts wrecked any plan to fetch balls. 

  At the start of the pandemic, my rescue dog and I relocated to the Central Valley. We traded surfers’ swells for a patchwork of almond orchards and sheep pastures and raptors big as dogs hanging out on the power lines. This time of year, the sky is shockingly blue and fields are smeared orange with wild poppies. For the most part, walking my dog is sheer delight. But now that Louis is a 20-pound adult, I’ve abandoned the idea of socializing at the dog park, much less finding my future mate there. Because here’s the thing about dachshunds: they are nervous, protective leash-lungers, with a bark fierce enough to slice an eardrum if any other dog is fool enough to approach. My cuddly blanket-burrower, my adorable black worm romping around the house with his floppy alligator toy, transforms into pure menace at the dog park. Marika, owner of Karuna Canine, trainer of the incorrigibles, assured me that it’s perfectly ok for a dog to opt out of the social scene at the dog park. “All those scary rowdy strangers horsing around,” Marika said. “Put yourself in Louis’ shoes.” And I do, in a forever search for a beautiful place to stretch his stubbly legs, leashless and free. 

One place we love is a big regional park re-wilding itself with native grasses. Pulling into the park’s fenced-in dog area today, I delighted to see just two vehicles in the lot. Maybe we’d have the grasslands mostly to ourselves! I could sequester Louis away from the social pack in a remote corner where he could let down his guard and scurry around the gopher holes. But once we entered the gate, it was obvious why we were almost alone. The whole place was overrun with knee-high bunches of foxtail, scourge of dog owners everywhere. After a rainy winter, our spring is offering an abundance of blooms and buzzing things both indoors and out. Just the other day I noticed a harvest of dandelions sprouting from my rooftop gutters. While foxtail is common here in springtime, knee-high bunches of the stuff are unheard of. The dog owners we usually encounter would be freaking out at the thought of the vet tweezing a spikelet from an ear canal or worse, a lung. 

  To Louis, none of this matters. He was barely off-leash before plunging his tubular body through clusters of purple vetch and feathery rush twice his height. One of the dachshund’s few design assets is the ear flap, whose length and floppiness will curtain the canal from foxtail hooks. I always inspect Louis vigilantly before we leave the park. What matters more is the marvel of this nervous, genetically overwrought and awkwardly designed dog busting through his hindrances to run free in the infinite grass. On a clear day like today, to the east we saw with our bare eyes snow-capped Sierra peaks a four-hour drive away. To the north, a flow of yellow mustard grass spilling all the way to the freeway. Roller-coastering in the breeze above us, white-tailed kites and harriers ignored the foxtails, as did several noisy sheep wandering near the fence to get a good look at Louis. Who needs to socialize with other dogs or, for that matter, with dog owners? Maybe our grassland is community enough. Whose idea was it anyway, to find my sweetheart at the dog park? Love affairs end but dogs are yours forever, just as the mountains live forever, and even after years of drought that feels never-ending, the magnificent stands of wild grass return.

Judith Frankel: An Illinois native, I currently I live in Davis, California, where I work as a development consultant. I've had a long career teaching writing, and serving nonprofits in human services and the performing arts.