Raiden, Knox, Dakota, Cody, Jewels, and our Kaiju got together at a big dog park in the afternoon.

It was “Round 2” for Knox and Raiden, who had not-so-friendly “Round 1” some months ago. It was before neither of them were neutered. Their humans looked forward to and felt very nervous about this re-match. They even planned to let the pups meet outside of the park and do a walk together before letting them off-leash in the same space.

Well, none of that was necessary. Raiden and Knox sniffed each other and went straight into carefree happy chases and wrestles.

Jewels and Kaiju had met before at this park. Jewels tends to be calm and aloof, but she makes an exception when Kaiju is there. This time, though, perhaps because there were other Shibas, she did not engage much. She mostly kept to herself and her stick.

Little Dakota was a very vocal lady. She yelled at every new Shiba that came in at first. Kaiju, of course, got some scolding, too.

Kaiju seemed unaffected when she wasn’t yelling, and happily played chase with her. However, he became very nervous every time she began giving her speech to others.

Knox tried to help by coming around and inviting Kaiju to play. Kaiju could not relax, though, with Dakota’s yelping echoing in the park. (Note: she was not doing anything other than making noise, seemingly to guard the area around her people).

By the time Cody arrived, Kaiju had already distanced himself far from the crowd, and was not budging. He kept walking away and away, toward the gate, and looking back at us. He wasn’t willing to go back to the pack of Shibas, who, by that time, decided for whatever the reason to have a joint howling session.

It was time to go home.

When we walked out of the gate, Knox came running all the way to the fence. He and Kaiju went toward each other and exchanged some sort of glance across the fence. Then Knox stood there to watch us get in the car one by one. He only ran back to the Shibas and humans when we drove off. He is such a sweetheart.