Believe it or not, I wasn’t nervous about donning the bite suit and getting attacked by a trained police dog during Bark in the Park until I got to Rollins Park on Saturday afternoon.
That’s when I was told it wasn’t Fanto, the 9-year old dog I’d met before, that was going to bite me, but rather a 2-year old pup named Ace from Manchester who was described as “kind of crazy,” with a “crazy eye.”
Oh.
Turns out there was nothing to worry about. The bite suit is so padded it reminded me of those giant inflatable sumo wrestling suits you see between innings at minor league baseball games. Ace certainly did his thing, digging in good, but the padding was such that I could only feel pressure, no pain. He’s a strong dog, though – he was swinging my arm around pretty good.
It was actually a pretty fun and interesting experience. Ace is well-trained and attacked only the parts he’s supposed to attack to disarm me (the arm and shoulder area) so his officer could make the arrest (note: I wasn’t actually arrested.)
The message was clear, though: if you’re wearing regular clothes, you don’t want to mess with a police dog. They know their business. A crazy eye is just an intimidating bonus.
