I live on the corner of Alhambra and Broadway. This is probably more information than you need, unless you, like me, have a new puppy and live on a city block ripe with prostitutes, crackheads, gutter punks, and fire trucks. This is not your average soccer mom neighborhood. Anyway, my sweet lovely puppy Bella is new to me, and new to city life(it seems). Taking her on a walk is NOT a peaceful experience. So far she’s tried to devour two skateboarding boys, one ten-ton fuel truck, seventeen city buses, two old women wielding shopping carts, six prostitutes, four drunks, three moms wheeling strollers, and one old man in a wheelchair. So where does a city hood-dwelling mommy take her beloved puppy for some«sit-stay-heel» training in a public but quiet spot? California Middle School, here we come! To the untrained eye, California Middle School probably ‘just’ looks like a beautiful brick school in a gorgeous neighborhood(yawn). But behind/beside California Middle School are the«California School Park» and the«McClatchy School Park». There are about 10 basketball hoops, several baseball/softball diamonds, several playgrounds, a dirt track, tons of rolling treed lawns, and relative PEACEANDQUIET. GT and I take Bella to California Middle School two to three times a week, where we can run her on the long leash, well away from people/kids/strollers/bikes/buses/whores and then do some short but intensive obedience training. The park is so large that, though it is still peopled with recreationists, Bella can concentrate on me/us and rack up all those«atta girls» that lead her directly into treats-and-cookiesland. My vet says that dogs who haven’t been properly socialized need to feel safe while seeing that their triggers(in Bella’s case, wheeled anythings and screamy children) aren’t worthy of their panic. That is, Bella can play, run, and co-exist with the things that in a more stressful situation(i.e., directly outside of our urban apartment) send her straight into guard-dog-on-duty mode. We haven’t fully broken her of the urges to attack the sources of loud noises, but she is calming down around them and panicking less frequently. Bella is awesome with other dogs but she doesn’t have all her shots and isn’t spayed yet so we can’t take her to the dog parks. Also, I want to be sure that she learns to listen for us in the midst of dog-crazed chaos. These quiet parks are like little gifts from dog. I mean god.