Several years ago, Max came into my life. He was just 8 weeks old. In the beginning, Max was like most 8 week old puppies, he slept, ate, went to the potty, played for a few minutes and then started the process all over again.

As Max grew, it became apparent that he had too much energy to be satisfied with just a walk in the neighborhood. His love was running -- running just for the sake of running.

Being a city dog, our yard did not give Max sufficient space to fully expend his energy. He soon discovered ways to escape from the yard and quickly located the neighborhood golf course.

At first, the people at the golf course chuckled at Max's exploits. Unfortunately, Max soon wore out his welcome and I soon began receiving phone calls in stern tones requesting that I remove Max from the golf course.

Around this time, I had heard that some cities had off leash dog parks. I began our search to locate a dog park near us where Max could open up and run to his heart's content.

The first park we found was the Dog Park in Pembroke Pines, FL. At first glance, this park seemed to be perfect It had large open areas for both large and small dogs, covered benches (it gets very hot in the summer in South Florida), water and even an area with a hose and a concrete pad that contained several small plastic children's wading pools.

Max embraced this park immediately. He took off running and didn't look back. After a few trips to the Dog Park, Max began to feel more "at home". He began to more fully explore the park. This was when he discovered his next passion, cooling off in the wading pools.

At first, this was enjoyable for both Max and myself. I loved watching him have so much fun! He was hilarious in how he selected a pool to lay in.

Then one day, while lying in the cool water of the pool, Max spied the area just off the concrete pad. Without warning, Max left the pool and ran over to this area just adjacent to the concrete pad. This area was nothing more than a huge mud puddle. He wallowed in that puddle until you couldn't tell what his true coloring was. Then suddenly, Max jumped up from the puddle and ran towards all the people sitting around on the benches watching their dogs, and shook all that mud off of him. People could not run fast enough from Max. We left the park with our heads hanging low.

Max's visits to the dog park became less frequent as we needed time to fully bathe him after each outing. I once again began looking for other park options.