“The Hebrew word for dog is ‘celev’ meaning ‘like a heart’; let your dog make you like a heart to other dog owners.”  

Anon. 

We’d had our little puppy, Gal, for about 3 months. One day, my husband Daniel came home, all excited to tell me news of their afternoon walk adventures.  “We met two great puppies,” he said “and Gal played really nicely with them,” he added.  “They’re so sweet – 2 golden retriever females named Ginger and Milan – and they belong to one guy,” he explained. He went on to tell me how our little mixed breed puppy had run circles with them and had really enjoyed the exercise.  “The Israeli owner – Dani – said they go there often; it’s not really a park, just a bit of abandoned grass that no-one seems to use so there are no complaints about dogs running around without leashes.”  And so began our introduction to what is now famously known in Jerusalem’s German Colony neighborhood, by natives and new immigrants alike, as “Dog Park.”

Today, Ginger and Milan are all grown up. It turned out that Dani, Ginger and Milan didn’t live alone.  We later met Dani’s wife, Yehudit and 5 or 6 months after that, they had a beautiful addition to their family – (human) daughter Avia. As if to follow suit, some months later, Milan gave birth to 8 beautiful puppies herself!  But that was quite well planned as Milan has won a lot of dog shows and thus produced pure bred highly sought-after puppies.

Gal is quite adult these days too. But it’s no longer just Gal, Ginger and Milan who play in Dog Park each afternoon between 6 and 7 in the summer and 5 and 6 in the winter.   To its regulars, Dog Park has become a culture like Shabbat is to observant Jews.  No matter what is going on in their lives, come that special Dog Park time, each of our dogs let us know we have to get moving; we have a date with our buddies and we can’t miss it for anything.  Even if we’re tired, our dog isn’t and has been waiting for this the entire day.  When we get there, we sit on a little concrete step as our dogs run and play together.  They play and we chat and because of our canines we find things in common that without our dogs, we never would.

Over the last year and a half, other dogs have told their parents (a.k.a. owners) about the park, bringing them along to sit and chat to the other parents.  We’ve found two of Milan’s siblings (adopted by different parents).  There’s Shai (belonging to an American family who just spent two years in Israel) and Ugi (second child of the owners of “Nisha” on Derech Beit Lechem). Their first child, Omer (human) is the unofficial 2-year-old Queen of the Park.  Omer and Ugi recently got a younger brother too (human); a little boy called Amit.  Of course there was a table of Dog Park people at the brit – and when the father gave a speech, he spoke of how Amit means “friend” and amongst other things, his hopes that his son will be a friend to dogs and their owners.

Then there’s the other golden of the park, Joy.  All dogs new to Dog Park have to be approved by Joy before being formally accepted by the pack; or rather, Joy’s mother, Ronit. Ronit is tough enough to ensure no riff-raff enters the park.  She is not only protective of beautiful Joy, but of all of Joy’s friends – other Dog Park regulars. 

While Gal loves the golden retrievers (who wouldn’t?), he particularly enjoys playing with canines his own size.  His special friend in the park is Charlie.  A little older than Gal, Charlie is a ginger colored dog, who’s not been “fixed” and thus will often be found attempting to hump anything or any dog. Other than that slight issue, the two play great together.  Charlie is owned by two American immigrants and their son and if daddy comes with Charlie, he might forget to tell him that he’s gone home already, leaving daddy sitting in the park alone.

Gal’s other special friend is Xuxa (pronounced Shusha).  He might even like her in that way, but we will never know, as Gal was fixed.  Xuxa is very similar to Gal in looks (apart from being darker – maybe that’s because she has pure bred Israeli parents?). She is also way thinner, which is perhaps why she has such the coolest party trick to get food.  She stands on her two back legs with incredible posture.  This makes it impossible to not give her food, when her parents – Israelis Gisele and Oded – aren’t looking.  Now there’s a cute couple (Gisele and Oded, not Gal and Xuxa!).

Of the other small dogs around, Gal has also taken a liking to newcomer Tutu.  She is very pretty and looks a bit like Gal but again is thinner and perhaps a bit taller.  I think Tutu’s a cross in looks between Charlie and Gal.  The three of them look great playing together.  Interestingly, Tutu’s parents live two doors down from us but we only met them at Dog Park; I guess it’s true that dogs bring people together. 

The other big dogs we like are Franco who is very distinguished looking and has a whole bunch of different fun owners, and Chupa – a chocolate colored pretty canine.  They are both very pleasant natured and good to hang around with.

Then there are the medium sized dogs.  Well, there’s Naala, who’s still a puppy so not fully-grown, but she will be pretty big; another relative newcomer to the group.  Then there’s Junior, Shpitz and Rocky and they all run up and down the abandoned piece of grass together, scavenging for food scraps and jumping on top of each other.

The amazing thing about Dog Park is not so much the dogs, but the parents.  Politically, religiously, ages, familial status, wealth, class, and anything else you can think of, you couldn’t get a more diverse group.  But the one thing we share – our canine comrades – has eliminated all those differences and we have discovered all sorts of other things we have in common after all.  Today, the group is very cohesive, but in any other life circumstance we would never have spoken to each other, let alone invite each other to family celebrations.