Football-sized pugs trot along in cadence before veering off toward
a suddenly alarmed Pekingese. Other dogs race around like loose atoms,
lapping at outstretched hands, watering trees and merrily sniffing one
another’s rollicking behinds.
Welcome to Miko’s Corner Playground, a pooch Xanadu in Reid Park
with its own blooming social set. These two acres of four-legged fun
were opened in 2007, named in memory of Miko, a police dog who leapt
from a bridge while chasing a crook.
Today’s scene includes a weekly meeting of the Pug Society. Begun as
an effort to find homes for stray pugs, the group’s gatherings have
become a regular Saturday ritual. This explains the passel of
squat-nosed fellows now snorting their way around the park’s east
end.
Jason Abbott and his wife, Elizabeth, are both society members.
“Pugs have fantastic personalities,” says Jason, who works for the Army
National Guard. “We love them for their quirks. They are great lap
dogs. They will stay by your side. Then there are the sounds they
make—the wheezing. I can be at one end of my house, and I can
tell where my dog is, because I can hear him breathing.”
Barbara Lasquete is another member, although she lacks a pug.
Instead, her hands are full with Leo the shih tzu, and her 9-month-old
human child, Michael. Lasquete was a Raytheon engineer before becoming
a mom, and explains that she and her hubby “are just on the edge” of
the Pug Society, as opposed to being knee-deep in the frolicking
wheezers. This could be due to Leo. “But while we’re not pug,” she
says, “they let anybody join. They have 30 or 40 members, and they meet
here every Saturday, religiously.”
On most weekends, more than 50 canines might be cruising this
small-dog park, with another 50 across the fence in the big-dog park.
The entire enclosure is leash-free, which allows most dogs a rare whiff
of freedom. With that freedom comes a few rules of etiquette, unspoken
or otherwise. They include keeping close tabs on children, to avoid
bites. And food is generally verboten, given the abundance of sensitive
snouts. You’re also expected to clean up after Fido; long-handled poop
scoops are clustered near the entrance, expressly for this purpose.
There are, of course, the other problems incumbent to human-canine
endeavors, such as snarky dogs, obstinate owners and endlessly trampled
grass. Just ask Sharon Boose and Helen Buglewicz. They’re with the Reid
Park K-9 Volunteers, a group that rides herd on Miko’s Corner.
You don’t want to mess with these monitors; Boose was Pennsylvania’s
first female police chief, before arriving in Tucson and starting K-9.
(See TQ&A, Nov. 29, 2007.) “I’ve told people they can’t bring their
dogs in here because they’re aggressive,” she says. “It depends on the
dog. If we know the dog and the people, you’re all right. But if your
dog shows signs of aggression—and mostly, it’s pit
bulls—then we don’t want them in here.”
Buglewicz claims that the park staff can also be a pain. This became
obvious, she says, when K-9 volunteers planted grass. “But then (the
groundskeepers) put in their own seed and their own fertilizer. They
killed our grass, and the birds ate all their seed.”
Visitors also learn about the rather delicate dynamics between the
big-dog park and its adjoining small-dog counterpart. Here, the precise
delineation between “big” and “small” can be rather tenuous, and
smoldering tiffs often erupt when big dogs appear in the small-dog
habitat. Rarely, however, does the reverse occur—although some
small dogs take particular pleasure in barking ferociously through the
fence at their larger brethren, knowing they won’t be eaten in
return.
Among small-dog aficionados, it’s also widely contended, albeit
somewhat diffidently, that the big-dog park is a touch macho. But that
idea is dismissed by big-dog regulars such as George Chamberlain, a
city bus driver who sits quietly with his German shepherd, Kaiser.
Chamberlain says there’s no ill will between little dog and big. “I’ve
been coming here off and on for years. But my wife has a little dog,
and she goes over there all the time.”
Each side also boasts its core habitués. At the small-dog
park, you’ll generally find folks clustered around the picnic table
under a huge shade tree. They include Sallie Blake, a judge pro tem
with the Pima County Justice Court, and her English bull terrier,
Willie. Blake sits next to school teacher George Acuña and his
curly mix, Barnushka. “The reason I come is that dogs need to be dogs,”
Blake says. “And you have to let them act like dogs. They live inside,
in such an unnatural environment for them.”
Acuña won’t argue with that. A big dog he rescued is quickly
turning his home to shreds, and his life upside down. “First, he hid my
damn keys,” Acuña says. “I had to buy one for my mailbox. That
cost $40. Then he got at my clothes that were drying and tore up all my
socks. And when we go for a walk, he’s the one who takes me.”
Then there’s the other extreme, embodied in Perrita, a sweet-but-shy
Chihuahua mix owned by Phil Smith. “I’m working on my dog,” Smith says,
“trying to socialize her.” But that’s an uphill battle. Perrita cowers
against the crowd circled around. “This is not her at her best,” he
says. “There are too many dogs here for her.”
Meanwhile, Sam Blackburn is keeping tabs on her Lhasa apso, her shih
tzu with a punk cut named Sid Vicious, and Sadie, whom Blackburn
describes as “half-miniature schnauzer and half pinscher. So she’s a
‘schninscher.'”
That gets as hearty laugh at the table, as the summer sun begins to
dominate this bi-species refuge in the middle of town. The growing heat
prompts Lasquete to cover Michael’s head, as she reins in her shih tzu.
Then she laughs, too.
According to Lasquete, this place is as much about shooting the
breeze as scooping the poop. “Oh, everyone will tell you it’s all about
the dogs,” she says. “But …”
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2009.
