Out in public with Gromit and Chewie
On the weekends it is my job to make sure the dogs get exercised. We often go to a large open private dog park located at the Minneapolis Airport Commission building site. The Mpls airport is right to the south of the fields. Planes take off and land but it is somehow still a rather pleasant place. Since it private property there is no need for permits. We found this site before it was popular, way back in the late 1990s when we had another dog - Rowdy Ann. Since that time the Twin Cities area has seen the rise and fall of a group called ROMP. ROMP made public the airport dog area and so now it is much busier than it used to be. ROMP stands for something like Responsible Owners of Mannerly Pets . It does stand for mannerly owners of responsible pets. I was not involved with ROMP but have benefited from the work they did in helping set up policies on dog parks in our area.
Nearly every time I bring our boys to the dog park I am asked "what kind of dog is that?" - by a person pointing to Gromit I tell them he is a labradoodle and without fail - the next sentence is somehow an announcement about his size - here are a few I have heard - "Wow he is sure a big one," "Did you know he would get that big," "he has such long legs," "what do you think made him that tall - the poodle," "he is huge," "I wanted a dog that size,"....I have been asked if he was a Russian Wolfhound, if he has some Deerhound in him, and finally one day a very sweet woman asked me if he was a cockapoo - she had no idea why I was holding back a huge grin - People often comment on what a cool dog Gromit is, how fast he runs and how pretty he is when he is making the rounds with Chewie's ball in his mouth.
After they have been assured that Gromit is in fact an F1B labradoodle and I do in fact know that he is bigger than the average bear, they move on to Chewie - is he the same breed they ask...I have to say, since labradoodles are not a formal breed the question always kind of cracks me up...but I do explain that he is a first generation with a poodle dad and Labrador retriever mom. He continues to chase his ball through the whole conversation not really noticing that I am talking to someone nor that the other person has a dog with them that he could be playing with in stead of playing with that silly ball!!
It has been much better, but for a long time I dreaded the questions about Gromit. Inevitably people asked me how much I paid for my dog - I was appalled. I know for a fact people pay a lot more money for dogs than I paid for mine, but who cares - and why would anyone need to know? I finally just started quietly walking away when people started asking questions that somehow indicated my ignorance in choice of companion. These were just openers for comments about puppy mills, over breeding, behavior problems, and on and on...I understand their concern and I wish that some of those folks had better manners. I was out at the dog park enjoying my dogs and I wanted to play with them. I was not interested in any dog club politics. I am tempted to just tell people they are poodle mixes or lab mixes or I don't know what they are....oh well.
Nearly every time I bring our boys to the dog park I am asked "what kind of dog is that?" - by a person pointing to Gromit I tell them he is a labradoodle and without fail - the next sentence is somehow an announcement about his size - here are a few I have heard - "Wow he is sure a big one," "Did you know he would get that big," "he has such long legs," "what do you think made him that tall - the poodle," "he is huge," "I wanted a dog that size,"....I have been asked if he was a Russian Wolfhound, if he has some Deerhound in him, and finally one day a very sweet woman asked me if he was a cockapoo - she had no idea why I was holding back a huge grin - People often comment on what a cool dog Gromit is, how fast he runs and how pretty he is when he is making the rounds with Chewie's ball in his mouth.
After they have been assured that Gromit is in fact an F1B labradoodle and I do in fact know that he is bigger than the average bear, they move on to Chewie - is he the same breed they ask...I have to say, since labradoodles are not a formal breed the question always kind of cracks me up...but I do explain that he is a first generation with a poodle dad and Labrador retriever mom. He continues to chase his ball through the whole conversation not really noticing that I am talking to someone nor that the other person has a dog with them that he could be playing with in stead of playing with that silly ball!!
It has been much better, but for a long time I dreaded the questions about Gromit. Inevitably people asked me how much I paid for my dog - I was appalled. I know for a fact people pay a lot more money for dogs than I paid for mine, but who cares - and why would anyone need to know? I finally just started quietly walking away when people started asking questions that somehow indicated my ignorance in choice of companion. These were just openers for comments about puppy mills, over breeding, behavior problems, and on and on...I understand their concern and I wish that some of those folks had better manners. I was out at the dog park enjoying my dogs and I wanted to play with them. I was not interested in any dog club politics. I am tempted to just tell people they are poodle mixes or lab mixes or I don't know what they are....oh well.
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