Beatrice's First Trip to the Shelby Farm Dog Park

I took Beatrice to the Shelby Farms Dog Park for the first time today.  She was a little scared at first, but soon relaxed and had lots of off-leash fun, running through the grass and exploring.

I tried to get Beatrice to stay within a safe distance of me, but of course my definition of a "safe distance" seemed to vary from Beatrice's.  As she was running around, I noticed that she would look back to see where I was every once in awhile.  As long as I was still following her, she just ran off and did what she wanted, only coming when I call if it was convenient to her (or I was bribing her with a treat).  BUT when I started walking away from her, suddenly she would run after me; she didn't want to lose me anymore than I wanted to lose her!

At one point, Beatrice found a patch of grass that she loved so much that she had to drop everything and roll around in it.  I don't know what was special about that particular patch of grass, and considering the types of things that dogs love to smell and/or eat, I probably don't WANT to know.  I probably should have stopped her...but she was just too cute!  I decided to make a video of her instead:

There were several other dogs in the park, most of them also off-leash, and more continued to arrive as time passed and their owners got off work.  Apparently, the dog park is a popular place an evening in Spring.

Beatrice was scared of the other dogs, but also very curious.  She just couldn't decide if she wanted to play or run away in terror!

This one man had his big dog and his little granddaughter with him.  She was a pretty little girl, 18 months old at the most.  She started to toddle up to Beatrice, who responded by cowering like Attila the Hun was swinging a sword at her head.  Something tells me that I need to introduce her to more children before YoungestSister has her baby...

Aside from the fact that Beatrice is now absolutely filthy, it was a fun afternoon, especially since the weather was so pretty.