Disastrous Day at the Park [& Mom of the Year award]

The weather was beautiful today, so we gathered the "kids" for a nice day at the park.  Sounds like fun right?

Anyone who knows Jackson, knows that he has a great heart, but unfortunately other dogs just aren't his "thing".  There are a couple of dogs that he gets along with (ok, one, and that's only because she lived with us when he was just a pup), but the combination of him being restrained on a leash, and meeting a new dog face to face is just never a good thing.  I do realize that this is not his fault, but ours for not socializing him properly, and it doesn't help that he's my first dog and I was always paranoid about him meeting other dogs (which I'm sure he sensed).  Regardless, we're still able to take him out with us to certain places.  I've taken him and Gwen to this same park by myself a bunch of times, and he's fine walking by other [leashed] dogs. 

Anyway, back to our relaxing day in the park.  We find a nice grassy area, lay out our blanket, and start taking out toys for Gwen to play with.  Almost as soon as we sit down, out of the corner of my eye, I see an all too familiar scene: an unleashed dog headed our way (this seriously happens to me way too often).  For the sake of drama, I'll leave out the fact that this dog is what looked like a yellow lab puppy - and not at all mean looking.  At this moment, I'm much more relaxed than times past because Justin is with us and I only have to worry about getting the baby up off the ground, and not being caught in the middle of a dog fight.  Right away, as Jackson sees the dog running toward him, he snaps into nervous aggression, and tries lunging at the other dog while growling.  Caught off guard, Justin pulls him back, which makes Jackson even more aggressive.  The other dog keeps at it, so Justin puts his hand down to try and separate them - bad idea, because his hand was at face level with the dogs and winded up getting bitten by our lovely dog.  Oh Jackson, we love you, but why do you make things so difficult?  So the other dog owner finally gets his dog away and apologizes for not having him on a leash.  Seriously, there are signs all over the place.  We don't take him to off leash parks for this reason.

So we try to compose ourselves after this ordeal, and start playing with Gwen again.  Here comes my Mom of the Year award moment...

Jackson is walking around on the blanket, and Gwen reaches out to pet him, as she normally does.  But this time, she's reaching right.to.his.butt.hole!  As I see what is about to unfold, I lunge forward to grab her right hand, but somehow my aim was WAY off and I end up jabbing her with my thumbnail and knocking her to the ground.  She immediately starts crying and I'm thinking that I completely poked her eye out.  After scooping her up and examining her, I realize that I hit her in the left eyebrow because I see the mark where I jabbed her.  Thankfully she was fine after a minute (and didn't seem to hold a grudge).

From beginning to end, we were probably at the park for 15 minutes before we decided to cut our losses and head out.