Community Lifestyle & Culture

Where dogs’ play, size doesn’t always matter

By Chloe Minja Lee Cheng

Frankie weighs roughly 15 pounds. One of his best friends at George’s Dog Run is Matilda, a golden retriever several times his size.

Monica Matta, 37, jokingly calls 3-year-old Frankie, whom she fostered for a month before adopting him last week, the “irritant” of the dog run. He loves rough play, chasing and being chased, she said.

“Matilda is so gentle with him, and Frankie is so rough with Matilda, and it works perfectly,” Matta said.

George’s Dog Run in Washington Square Park has been the site of a daily outing for Matta since she started fostering Frankie. 

“This is just the best opportunity to socialize with other dogs of all sizes and to get some energy out,” she said, mentioning the dog run’s proximity to her home, protective fences and size as other pluses.

Paul Salkind, 59, has been bringing his year-old Yorkie-Chihuahua mix Lula Mae to George’s Dog Run once, sometimes twice, a day for the last 6 months. Size — of both dogs and the park itself — is an important factor for him, too.

At nine pounds, Lula Mae qualifies for entry into the second dog run at Washington Square Park, which is limited to dogs weighing 35 pounds or less. But Salkind prefers to frequent George’s Dog Run, which allows dogs of all sizes to roam and play together within its borders. 

According to Salkind, the park for small dogs is just that: small. “It’s much larger here [at George’s], so she can really run,” he said. “The small dog run is too short.”

Like Matta, Salkind values play between mixed-sized dogs.

“Just as humans have to get along with all kinds of people — bigger and shorter, different backgrounds than they are — dogs have to do the same thing,” Salkind said.

Neither Salkind nor Matta believes there are dangerous risks to letting dogs of different sizes play together.

“Especially the dogs that come here, they’re pretty well socialized to different types of dogs,” Matta said. “And the community that comes here is really diligent about, sort of, keeping a watchful eye over their dogs.”

Owners have to pay attention, Salkind said, but differently sized dogs “can play very well” together.

Alexandra Horowitz, Barnard College psychology professor, agrees.

“In my experience, dogs of different sizes have little trouble playing together,” Horowitz, who studies dog cognition, said. “The success of the play bout has more to do with the personalities of the dogs — and maybe owners … — than their size.”

Dogs are able to adjust the intensity of their play depending on their playmates, Horowitz explained. Big dogs “easily self-handicap” when playing with dogs smaller than themselves, biting and tackling with less force.

Salkind has watched Lula Mae alter how she plays with dogs smaller than she is.  In contrast, when she’s with dogs bigger than her, he said, Lula Mae, who likes to play hard, knows that “she can be a little bit more aggressive.”

“She doesn’t mind a little bit of wrestling,” Salkind said, “and I’ve seen her do that with dogs of all sizes.”

Matta said that most of the friends Frankie makes at the park are bigger dogs. Frankie thinks “that he’s bigger than he is,” she said. 

However, when Matilda and Frankie play together, Matta said, the golden retriever is so much larger that “she is often able to subdue him just by sitting on him.”

“[It] is my favorite move … ” Matta said, laughing. “The first time, especially as a new dog owner, you get a little worried, but he pops right up, tail wagging. Frankie’s so happy that he gets to hang out with Matilda.”

Towards the end of his stay at the park, Salkind pulled out his phone and played a clip of Lula Mae greeting a pit bull mix many times her size while on leash in a building hallway.

“You noticed who’s running the ship?” he said as the video showed Lula Mae wagging her tail and weaving around the unbothered pit bull. 

He stopped the video. “Did they seem like they were having any problems?” Salkind asked.

The answer is no.