The Dog Park Debate: Social Playground or Behavioural Minefield?
26 Jun 2025 · 16 min
In this episode of The Dog People Podcast, hosts Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill examine whether dog parks are beneficial social spaces or risky environments for dogs. They begin by noting the recent proliferation of fenced dog parks, especially in the Gold Coast, and suggest these spaces often serve owners' convenience more than canine welfare. Drawing on personal anecdotes—Jack’s experience of his small dog being pinned and becoming reactive, and Max’s observations of frequent fights—they illustrate how enclosed areas can trigger aggression, poor socialization, and lasting physical or psychological harm. Max adds a behavioral and ethological perspective, comparing domestic dog park dynamics to wild canine pack territories, emphasizing that forced mixing of unrelated dogs is unnatural. The hosts then outline the potential benefits of dog parks when they are quiet, well‑matched, and provide exercise and play. They weigh these against the numerous risks, including injury, loss of recall, and reinforcement of undesirable behaviors. To help listeners decide, they propose a decision framework (Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Intuition, and What‑If‑Nothing) and suggest alternatives such as off‑lead large open areas, scheduled low‑traffic visits, using long lines, or arranging one‑on‑one playdates. Throughout, they maintain a conversational, slightly skeptical tone, ultimately concluding they are largely anti‑dog‑park, recommending owners consider safer, more natural options for their dogs' exercise and social needs. The episode also contains multiple sponsor reads that are not central to the discussion.
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Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining: Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count.
Thank you.
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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.
You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd?
They go, I don't know.
I'd go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.
This is the Dog People Podcast, the podcast helping and giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. And today the topic of conversation is a polarizing one, much like most of the topics of conversation around dogs and dog training. But this one, Max, we're going to be talking dog parks, a place where I used to— again, I want to preface this before we get into this conversation, a place where I used to frequent a long time ago on a regular basis, like many people do.
Yeah, absolutely. Today we're going to talk about, do we really need them? Look at the benefits, the risks, and some things like that. And actually a bit of a chat about them. Again, a lot of the chatter you see online is, you know, get rid of dog parks and this and that. And yeah, cool. Like, again, there's a part of me that agrees, there's a part of me that disagrees, but let's just completely chat about it and break it all down and help you make, again, an informed decision about whether your dog actually needs this in their life or not, because chances are they probably don't. Let's take it apart. So, dog parks. Dog parks are obviously, you know, we probably don't need to tell you what a dog park is, but they've only really come into existence in the last, I'd say, 20, 30 years. I actually tried researching this, funnily enough, and didn't really seem to be that much of a thing, although they were that prevalent a while ago. So, it sort of seems in this new age of dog ownership, dog parks have popped up a whole lot. Where we live in the Gold Coast City Council, I feel like Every year you'll see a few new dog parks. You go, look, they've fenced off another area and made more areas for dogs, which is, which is cool. I think it's good. You know, more places we can take our dogs. But this idea of fencing them in, not giving them room to escape, and really just like, hey, you all must interact in this really small area, I think is pretty intense. And I think that these, you know, this sudden increase in a huge amount of dog parks, I really think is more for our amusement and our benefit than theirs, because it's an easy way for... gotta say, the lazy dog owner take their dog down, sit on their phone on the bench for an hour, let their dog wreak havoc, tire themselves out, and then take them home. And I do think it attracts a lot of those owners, unfortunately. Obviously I'm not painting everyone with the same brush, but I definitely think we've made these for our benefit and to keep them out of, you know, busy beaches and other nicer public parks. We kind of just shoo them away, put them in this little fenced corner. And quite often that's also at our dog's detriment. And that's what we really want to chat about today. I know you've had some bad experiences at dog parks in the Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, I think every time we used to go down the dog park, there was always some form of scrap. Like I remember so many mornings us having to pull dogs apart because they started fighting over something. Because you'll have one owner who's down there with the ball and the throwy thing and just lobbing the ball and their dog is obsessed over the ball and they're just chasing the ball. You'll have the other dogs that are trying to herd that dog. They're barking and getting aroused by that. And it's just this recipe. Now I see it obviously now with the hindsight of doing a lot of reading and more knowledge. Like with anything, I now can look back on that and go, oh my God, it's just a recipe for disaster. You've just got all of these dogs all hyped up. The energy is just going through the roof. You'll have dogs snapping at other dogs, this dog doing that. And it's just, honestly, it's a melting pot. And, you know, and I was in a situation again, I've spoken about a dog I used to own before, one that we'll, again, we'll cover more in depth in another episode. But, you know, I took him there again. He was small. Took him in with the bigger dogs because I was an absolute moron. Put him in, thought, that's right, we'll socialize him with these other dogs, get him used to other dogs.
Great.
He ended up in a situation where he was pinned by another dog, essentially just ruined him. From that moment on, he became dog reactive. Yeah.
Single event learning.
And it just, it was, it's horrendous. And now obviously I don't go to, I mean, I go to an area that it would possibly be classified as a dog park, but it's Not at one of those enclosed fence situations. It's a large open sort of area that you can get away from other people's dogs. Even, you know, in the last couple of weeks we've had some issues with dogs coming and running at us, but you have more space to move. Kira has never been in a fight, touch wood. And I don't plan on her ever being in a situation where she will get in one because I remove myself from situations where that could happen.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's just—
And dog parks are a recipe for that.
Yeah, exactly.
Just fencing everyone in, not letting anyone escape is just a recipe for disaster. I mean, if you watch And that's why any movie with a prison scene in it ever, all the shit goes down out in the prison yard because everyone's caged in and fenced and tensions are high. And, uh, I mean, you can probably speak more about that than me.
Yeah, I've got some experience with shankings. Yeah, anyone who's not heard my other podcast will now think I'm some former criminal who stabbed people behind bars.
Jack has never been to prison.
No, not yet.
Yeah, check out his other podcast. Yeah, that'll maybe explain a bit more. Yeah, dog parks are largely and hugely unnatural, and I want to give some more background on that. So, being a bit of a dog behaviour nerd, it's not just the training side of it. I really, really, really love the behaviour and ethology side and learning all about all sorts of canine species. And that means quite a lot of wild dog observation. This is both like in a formal setting and also just informal when I'm travelling and researching in my own time and things like that. And one thing I'll repeatedly see again and again and again, whether that's just like wild previously domesticated dogs, you know, like your local German Shepherds ran off from Mount Tamborine and knocked up another wild dog, and now they've got their own little pack out there, or whether that's like wolves and dingoes, etc., is dogs in one group really don't interact and go in seeking out dogs in another group, is what's really, really interesting. And you can look at heat maps of this in wolves or other wild dog populations or whatever. Is when animal trackers have like put these tracking devices on wolves or wild dogs or whatever to kind of keep track of them, is you might have population A stick on one side of the road, population B might only live and, you know, will go as far as that boundary, but those 2 things will never intersect. They go, hey, that's your area, that's our area, we'll stick to our group, you stick to your group. Cool. Dogs have got their little group, and sometimes this is one of them. Some dogs just operate in one area. Hey, I know I'm surrounded by the dogs, but I'm not remotely interested in meeting any of you. I'm good. Or they might live in a group and they go, we do not need to add any numbers here, like, we're good. And again, when we get all these dogs from 20 different households, bring them all to the park and go, hey, you guys all need to get along, like, it's just not natural. And especially in that context, it's not like everyone's going there and chill and there's 20 well-trained dogs and 20 responsible owners. Like, it's generally 20 of the most out-of-control, hyperactive dogs, and it ends up being this like UFC Roman orgy hybrid. It's just— It's always so insane down there. And one of the things we actually do is, um, a part of our puppy school and a part of our other group training programs, we'll actually do a park week where we set up outside a dog park and we use a dog park as a training tool, working on our dog's engagement. But we actually sit down for a bit and go, hey, like, let's just watch. And I guarantee you in the next 10 minutes we'll see a fight.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Without fail, there's always one right on cue. And it's just things get so heated and so intense and You look at animals and look at their, their, you know, their fight and their flight responses. The moment you fence them in and remove flight as an option, a lot of them go, okay, well, I've got to really stand up for myself and become aggressive to stop something here. And your dog either learns to become a victim or your dog learns to become a bully in that context. So there's really just not that many benefits to going. It's, it's more so risks and downsides than anything, if I'm really honest.
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What's going on?
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There's people that obviously use dog parks and they go, I only go there when there's no other dogs. I use it because it's nice and fenced in. I can practice bits and pieces. Totally fine.
Fair enough.
Not a drama. But you just watch, even from the moment you arrive at the dog park with your dog, the dogs that are already in there, they all come And then you're just barreling to the fence where you're going to come through. And now you've got this wall of dogs just standing there like intense. So literally from the moment you arrive, it's just intense. And then you open that gate and then they're all on top of your dog and they're sniffing and then, and then they're running and your dog's running. And I'm like, it's just, it's just a melting pot instantly as soon as you arrive at a dog park.
Imagine walking into a social event or a party or wherever. And as soon as you arrive, like everything stops and they go, oh my God, hey everyone, this person's here. Let's all go and crowd the doorway and like get in their face. It's just as weird for them as it is. As it would be for us. And again, we kind of think that this is natural in dogs being dogs, but it's not. Like I said, I do so much observation of wild dogs, and they do nothing that remotely mimics what we do at dog parks. So one thing we're going to do today is, it's kind of corny, but we look at it as like our brain analogy. We start before we do anything, we look at whatever the B, the benefits, the risks, the alternatives. What does your intuition say? What happens if you do nothing? Again, so let's look, let's go from the start. Let's look at the benefits of a dog park. Okay. It's some good exercise for your dogs. And when dog parks go well, if you go there and there's only a few dogs there and they're all compatible with your dog, there is nothing better than watching your dogs play and get along with other dogs. For me personally, I go, how cool is that? When we bring Nelson over with Kira, sometimes Jack and I'll, between episodes, we'll sit there for 20 minutes just going, just look at those two.
Just having a laugh, just mucking around together, having a great old time. And that's perfect. And there are people who listen and go, well, I go to the dog park. They know the same people every day.
We see the same people.
Great. works, keep it up.
Dream scenario.
Totally.
And that's the benefits. Like, when it goes well, it can be awesome. But then when we start to look at the risks is we'll get really poor socialisation skills. Like we mentioned, your dog can either start to think, hey, every dog's out to get me, like your previous dog.
Yeah.
Or if your dog's the biggest, baddest, toughest dog at the park, it's going to go, hey, I've figured out I'm really good at squashing dogs. I really want to keep doing this. Your dog can get in fights and that can lead to some like long-term damage, both physically and psychologically. Your dog can get injured. Again, it's, it's pretty intense. And I'll sometimes see people taking their like Italian Greyhound to the park who's got wrists the size of my finger, and then they're playing with like a 50-kilo Rottweiler. I'm like, I know which dog's gonna end up at the vet later this afternoon. And then on the lower end of the scale, there's some other risks. Like, you just, you're really just teaching your dog to disengage from you. Go there, you check out, you generally let them do their thing, and your dog goes, all right, like Cool. I guess these guys are more interesting. I guess you don't want much to do with me. I'll interact with them. And that's when I get all these clients come to me and a lot of their problems stem from the dog park. My dog's got no recall, no engagement. They don't listen. They're too obsessed with other dogs and all this stuff stems from dog parks. So there's the benefits and the risks. And I just, I think that one—
Certainly one clearly. The scale of balance here is certainly tipped in the favour of risks.
We start to look at alternatives. So we go, okay, like what else can you do? If you need someone to exercise your dog, find a quieter place, find another way of doing And if, again, if your dog is the sort of dog who wants to socialise with other dogs, and if you really get a kick out of doing it, do it the way Jack and I do. I'll bring Nelson around here to have a play with Kira.
Cool.
And they'll see each other once a week and he's like, cool, I've got my dog fix. And get your dog maybe a best mate or a couple of mates, but your dog doesn't need to go and mingle and meet all these new dogs at the park every week. So there's a lot of alternatives you can do where you get the exact same benefit of the dog park without any of the risks.
And I guarantee there would likely be an area like the one I go to, which is It is an off-lead dog area, but it is, this place is so massive. Like it's just huge. And there's different areas. There's a wooded area. There's, they've got some dog agility stuff in there. So there's all different sections you can go to and you can keep your distance. Or you can at least see from a distance, oh, hey, there's a dog coming that's paying a real, a lot of attention on my dog. That looks like it might be a bit intense. Hey, we're going to go this way.
Yep.
You know, so there are those options. You don't have to be in a situation where you are hemmed in in that square with a metal fence gate and you can't go anywhere. There are other options that you can use if you want to have some off-lead time, you know, and be secure in the fact that, you know, okay, the dog can't really run away anywhere. This place is surrounded by lakes, so they can't go anywhere.
Yeah.
Or just long line, you know, if you've got no recall and you want your dog to have a bit more sort of running around.
Plenty, plenty of good spots for it. And if you jump on your local city council website and look at the list of dog parks in your area, you'll actually discover there's probably 5 times as many as you think. So you don't have to go to the busiest, most populated one. And you don't have to go at the busiest, most populated time. Like dog parks can be great if you go there between 10 and 2 in the middle of the day when no one's there. It's like awesome, you've got a whole fenced yard just for yourself.
Yeah.
And yeah, I get a lot of my clients doing that. The next one is we look at what does your intuition say. If you do choose to go to a dog park and you kind of make that decision, I always recommend you sit outside for 5 minutes and just watch. Again, like we said, the chances are you'll probably see some pretty crazy shit go down, but also just get a feel. You'll, you'll know your dog, you'll know what they work well with and what they don't work well with. For example, if I was going to take Nelson to a park, I know Nelson is such a social dog, but he's got a few non-negotiables. If another male dog tries to hump him in not a play way, in a genuine, I'm going to try and hump you into submission way— shout out to Dodgeball, great movie— is if, if a dog is genuinely doing that to him, he does not take kindly. He'll let them know pretty staunchly. So if I was going to go to a dog park, we'd sit outside, and if I saw one of those dogs and the owner wasn't stopping their dog a go, We might wait 5 minutes and see if that dog goes. Whatever the— if there was a type of dog where you saw a situation, you saw a dynamic in there, you could go like, nah, I don't want my dog to be a part of that. Or, you know, I don't want my dog to join in on that. Then just sit out. Use your intuition. Go, you know what, today we might do something else. And then lastly, if we look at the last little letter of our acronym, what happens if I do nothing? If you choose not to go to a dog park, I promise you, your dog won't lose out. Nelson's been to a dog park a couple of times in his life for training stuff, teaching him to work around dogs. We go there when it's quiet, but he's never been in participating. It's like a general dog park setting. And you know what? I'd be hard pressed to find a dog with a better life than him. If you don't, don't take your dog to the dog park. And especially if you replace it with something else that ticks the same good boxes and the same benefits, is your dog's not going to lose out. Your dog wasn't put on this planet to go to dog parks and socialize. Like I said, it's probably the most unnatural thing you can do for them. So they certainly won't lose out if you don't take them.
Yeah. Don't, don't sit there and feel guilty because your dog is not hanging out with other doggy friends.
Yeah.
Okay.
100%.
There are so many other things you can do for your dog to make it extremely happy. And that's just you spending one-on-one solid engagement time with them and doing something they enjoy, whether that's, you know, tug, the fetch, you know, training, that sort of stuff. That is where your dog gets its pleasure from, not going to the dog park and running around with some strange dogs for half an hour and potentially getting into a fight.
Yeah, exactly right, guys.
So are we anti-dog parks?
Yeah, I'm anti-dog parks. I think I've had a handful of clients that I suggest continue to go, but I think 99.9%, I'll say, hey, you should probably stop. This isn't a good idea.
So, and people understand once you, once you explain this, once people understand the reasonings behind, because again, for most people, 90% of people, it's just what everyone does. You go to a dog park, you've got a dog, you go to a dog park, you socialise, you go meet, you know, people. Oh, morning, how are you? And you have your chat and your dog runs around for a bit and then off you go.
Yeah, exactly right.
So it's understandable that people have that But I think once you explain, hey, this is actually what can go wrong, these are the reasons why it's probably not a good idea, people go, you know what, that makes perfect sense.
Yeah.
And just the fact that it's just really not needed. Your dog will be absolutely fine without going. And if anything, they'll probably do better without having them in their life.
If you want to share, actually, what might be interesting is if we share some, some stories from dog parks, good and bad. Like maybe you go to a dog park and you've got a really great situation where you and a group of your friends all hang out, your dogs get along. Maybe you've had a bad situation like I've had in the past. Um, and any questions, of course, head to the Facebook page, The Dog People Podcast. We'll see you next time. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill, edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.
At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, member SIPC.
What's going on? I'm Arch Manning, Vuori athlete and college quarterback. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unwinding at home, I love doing it in my Core Shorts from Vuori. With a breathable boxer brief liner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand up to even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come in 3 inseams and a ton of colors. Ready to try a pair? Go to vuori.com/arch and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're gonna love them as much as I do. That's vuri.com/ARCH and get 20% off your first order. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day.
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