Ben Westhoff

This week's guest columnist is my wife Anna.

There's as wide an array of doggie personalities as human personalities. The dog park taught me that.

It turns out our 9-month-old puppy Pippi's a wimp. At home, she exhibits alpha-dog tendencies such as teasing the cat, attempting to jump up on people and pulling on her leash. But at the dog park I see a different side of her.

In our park visits so far, Pippi's remained silent while many of the other dogs bark, snarl and make a racket. She does not enjoy roughhousing in the midst of a whirling canine cluster. (This is understandable because, as we've seen, it can turn quickly into a fight.)

Instead, Pippi prefers to make friends with a single pooch to engage in nice, one-on-one play at the edge of the field. She prefers dogs her own size or smaller. It was a real hoot to watch leggy Pippi befriend a short and stocky English bulldog who followed her around and whose owner told us had never run for that long or that fast in her life. They were two mismatched peas in a pod.

Pippi keeps a close eye on us as she plays, and we sometimes have to run alongside her to get her in motion. Otherwise, she just hovers around our legs. Unlike at home, she is generous with her toys in the dog park, even when another dog appropriates her red Frisbee. Maybe she just trusts that we'll retrieve it before we all head back home.

All in all, the dog park has helped me see what a peach of a pup we have. She suits us, and to some degree matches our personalities.

Have you learned anything surprising about your dog after observing him or her in a group setting?

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Other than the 1998 Luke Wilson movie, I didn't know much about dog parks before Anna and I got Pippi. I always imagined places where pups smelled each others' butts and guys attempted to pick up chicks. After our experience at one this weekend, however, I realize they can be much more intense.

The park we visited was just off one of New Jersey's godforsaken stretches of highways and Pippi had a great time. She was a little shy around the other dogs at first, but eventually got into the swing of things. I'll talk more about her behavior in a future post about dog parks, but for now I want to focus on a particularly fraught incident.

It began when a youngish guy came into the park with his muscular black pit bull. The pit bull played friendly at first, with dogs including a German shorthaired pointer mix who looked something like Pippi. But after a few minutes the pit bull got snarly and nippy (with the pointer mix in particular) and the dogs had to be broken up. A few minutes later the same thing happened again -- except the pit bull was even more aggressive this time. I couldn't tell if he was just playing or if he was out for blood, but the pointer's owner freaked out.

She split the dogs and began punching the pit bull in the chest and gut. This incensed the pit bull's owner, who began swearing at the other owner and warning her to keep her hands off of his dog. The gathering onlookers insisted that it was time for the pit bull to leave, and so his master angrily put on the leash and took him out of there.

Certainly everyone is responsible for the behavior of his or her dog, and it seems likely that the pit needed a break from the dog-park "fun." But to my mind the pointer's owner ceded the moral high ground when she attacked. The safety of everyone's dogs should be of primary concern, even that of those behaving inappropriately, right? Then again, perhaps the woman's maternal instincts simply took over and she was doing what any protective dog owner would do in that situation. What are your thoughts?

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Only a few months ago, before Anna and I got Pippi, I wrote about the old cat people vs. dog people debate. I called myself a cat person, despite never having owned a dog. Now, with two months of canine companionship under my belt, it's time to reevaluate that label.

When we first got Pippi, I was overwhelmed. Between her insistence on peeing and pooping wherever she wanted and her constant need of attention, I was a bit freaked out. She was as well. Still a puppy, she'd been shuttled between a breeder, a temporary guardian, a foster dad and us, all within six months. And as a dalmatian/pointer mix she had boundless energy, requiring four walks a day and was constantly taunting our kitty Nora. "I thought having a dog would be like having a cat," I told my friends at the time, "but now I see that having a cat is more like owning a pet rock, while dog ownership is more like caring for a baby."

But in the past few weeks I've found our baby to be less of a burden and more of a pleasure. We've gotten into a dog-walking routine, her house training has taken, and I've realized something that is, to me, delightful: Dogs really let you manhandle them.

I've always been a pretty hands-on, rough-and-ready guy when it comes to affection, be it wrestling my brother or aggressive cuddling with my cat. The only thing is, Nora doesn't like it when I hold her too close. Like most felines, she prefers affection on her own terms.

My wife Anna and I had no idea. Turns out that when we acquired our puppy, we also received a Hoover upright free of charge! Our canine vacuum will consume almost anything within reach, including food we've dropped on the floor, socks, underwear, snow and even part of our down comforter. Yesterday, inexplicably, she wolfed down a wad of paper towels. A few days before that, she chewed up my favorite wooden stirring spoon. Perhaps the worst offense was when Pippi obliterated one of Anna's notebooks. It had been full of information Anna needed at the office, and required her to explain to her boss that our dog literally ate her homework. "I felt like such a moron," she says.

Perhaps we should count our blessings. After all, since the great diarrhea incident of early February, Pippi hasn't consumed anything that has aggravated her stomach. Also, she tends to stay away from the furniture and, of course, hasn't nipped any people.

And yet it's expensive to replace and replenish household items and foodstuffs, and we worry about Pippi's well being. Surely bits of wood can't be particularly conducive to digestive-tract health. For this conundrum we turn to you readers. We've been doing our best to keep potentially edible items out of her reach, but beyond that, what can we do? How do we ensure that young Pippi doesn't find herself at the vet with, say, an eggbeater in her stomach?

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Pippi's arrival in our home has been a lot of fun. Our new dog loves being near Anna and me and she loves meeting new people. The problem is that in her enthusiasm for children, friends, strange dogs and, well, anyone who happens to be passing by, Pippi often leaps on them to say hello. In the process, she has jumped onto some folks' bad side.

One early-morning, Pippi and Anna were exploring a yard when a small, middle-aged woman walked by on the sidewalk. With a hop, skip and a jump, Pippi reared up in front of her, placing her front paws on the lady's collarbone to say hello.

"Excuse me, ma'am!" the vexed woman yelped, looking at Anna sharply. Anna apologized, retracted Pippi's leash and tried to make her sit, but the damage was done.

Puppies are prone to hopping up, in an attempt to become face-to-face with their guardians and potential new friends. (It's a way for them to get closer to you, and, of course, makes it easier for them to lick your face.) The ever-curious Pippi seems especially prone to this behavior. It surely doesn't help that in our dog-friendly town, lots of people actually invite her to jump up and play with them.

What do you think, readers? Must we lay down the law and insist Pippi never jump up on anyone? And, if so, what's the best way to nip this jumping behavior in the bud?