After a day of being lazy around the house, many dog parents have the same thought: “Let’s go to the dog park!”
There’s several reasons why the dog park is a godsend. If you’re like me and don’t have a backyard, they provide a luxurious amount of space for running around. They’re great spaces for socializing, both for your dog and yourself. And if you have a high-energy dog, it’s just a great way to burn off that extra energy.
Now here’s something that may surprise you: It’s actually possible to take your dog to the dog park too often.
Here’s just one reason why: A visit to the dog park increases your pup’s stress level. That’s not necessarily “bad stress” (though it could be if your dog is anxious and dislikes the dog park), but “good stress,” or a heightened level of excitement. This excitement releases cortisol, a stress hormone. Like adrenaline, cortisol serves as a kind of “fuel,” oxygenating the muscles and increasing heart rate and blood pressure — in other words, a fight or flight response.
That Dog Geek, an online channel run by the trainers of Australia’s Beacon Dog Training, puts it this way:
“After a stressful event, it takes time for the dog’s hormone levels to return to normal; it can be as long as a whole week. Deep, restful sleep is a very important part of this process, and a dog who isn’t sleeping well will take longer to recover.
In addition, stress hormones are cumulative, meaning that if a dog has another stressful event before it has recovered from the previous one, the overall levels will be even higher.
This means that many dog park attendees are stuck in a cycle of ever increasing stress hormones, as their bodies don’t return to normal levels in between dog park visits.”
Read more about this subject in their Facebook post — trust me, you’ll learn a lot.