Two men were fighting at a bar. One of them threw a shrimp cocktail and yelled, "And that's just for starters!"

That's a joke — but it's only a hairsbreadth away from describing the real-life events that played out at an Auburn, Calif., dog park earlier this year.

On January 25, Officer James Dalton responded to a call at the local Auburn dog park and, after interviewing several witnesses, arrested 56-year-old David Cramer for assault with a deadly weapon.

The deadly weapon was a Chuck It. A Chuck It, for those who play fetch the old-fashioned way, is a long plastic ball-throwing device.

Cramer reportedly used his to whack a woman on the head during a disagreement. The two dog owners were arguing about the way their dogs were interacting.

That's not a joke.

I've never been a fan of dog parks. For years, I've been warning against them in this space, harping on the fact that you know absolutely nothing about the other dogs with whom your dog is cavorting - whether they're friendly, whether they're fearful, whether they're moody and persnickety, whether they're hosting internal or external parasites you don't want on your dog or in your home, whether they love to pick a fight.

Fights at the dog park — I'm talking about the canine variety now — come with the territory. It's an off-leash space where relative strangers — both human and canine — come together to socialize. But as the Auburn incident illustrates, even the most well-intentioned socializing can backfire when personalities clash.

In theory, dog parks are great. They're all about play. What complicates matters is that we don't all play the same way. It's kind of like when parents from the "we're just here to have fun" camp mingle with parents who are "in it to win it" — and of course I mean whose kids are in it to win it. Wink.

The parents and children from these opposing camps bring very different energy to the environment of play. A highly competitive approach brings aggressiveness, confidence, willfulness, dominance. A playful approach is lighter, open, friendly and relaxed. And while these attributes are more often associated with humans, it isn't unheard of for a dog to absorb and even reflect the energy of his upright companion. In other words, it's not blind coincidence that Cramer and his Chuck It victim clashed mightily over their dogs' inability to get along.

The strange thing about this incident is that it's usually the humans who are able to talk things out, agree to disagree or at least walk away. When trouble brews between dogs at a dog park, it's easy for it to escalate for three reasons:

1. The relevant humans are usually too far away or distracted to do anything to defuse tension before it turns into a fight.

2. Humans and dogs tend to react to a dog fight with excited or frantic energy, which only makes the fighting dogs dig in deeper.

3. Dogs aren't impeded by the threat of a lengthy prison sentence or the loss of everything that made life as they knew it good. Once fighting, they are acting on instincts that could drive them to kill. And that's much worse — and much more common — than a bonk on the head from a Chuck It.

Woof!

Dog trainer Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis is co-author of 18 books about dogs, a behaviorist, a popular radio and television guest, and host of the PBS series "WOOF! It's a Dog's Life!" Read all of Uncle Matty's columns at www.creators.com, and visit him at www.unclematty.com. Send your questions to dearuncle.gazette@unclematty.com or by mail to Uncle Matty at P.O. Box 3300, Diamond Springs, CA 95619.