I took Stardust out to Dog Park after she had her second set of vaccines at 5 months.
I made sure that the park had small dog/large dog seperate pens. I don't have any friends that had dogs or knew anyone that had dogs, so I wasn't really sure how Stardust would react to other dogs. I talked to a few people what to watch for in bullying behavior and how they thought my dog was doing. Stardust really loves the dog park, but there has been some occasions where she would get picked on. She never intitiates the taunting and usually gets a little submissive (laying down, rolling on back, etc...not peeing or anything like really submissive dogs would do). Good thing is that Stardust just picks herself up and just ignore it. She doesn't seem to get affected by it at all.
It took me a while to really recognize some "bad" behaviorial dogs and really good dogs. There has only been one occasion when I had to take her out right away because she was really being picked on two 40 pound basset hound/lab mixes.
Having said all that, do expect there will be some "drama" at the dog parks, try to go on less busy hours. I go around later afternoon up until 5pm during the week, and almost rarely go on weekends because the parks get so many dogs (perhaps 20 to 30 dogs), and it's hard to have EVERY single dog get along.
Someone once said on this forum, that not every dog that your dog approaches will be sweet and friendly, vice versa. Just like trying to stick 20 people in a room together, not everyone will like each other.
However, if you're going to do some obedience training, I suggest you to refrain from going to dog parks and instead have Play Dates with dogs you know.
When your dog is fully trained, he probably doesn't really care for hanging out with other dogs and rather play with you (anyone please correct me on this, but I'm getting that assumption).
Sorry for so long of a post.
