I've been taking my 14-week-old pup to a nearby dog park, and she's been doing great. She wants to meet everyone-- dog and human alike. This is great, but I still need to figure out a few things:

Today, after a 30-minute walk and another 20 minutes of her just running around and playing with other adult dogs, I decided to start heading home. Just before we leave, another pup runs up and starts to play-fight with mine. This other dog was much larger than mine and seemed to be an adolescent. My dog rolls on her back and lets the other dog do his thing. I let this happen for a few seconds until I noticed that my dog's body language hadn't changed at all; she was just lying there on her back with whale eyes.

It's clear to me that the bigger dog just wanted to play, but it also seemed like my dog wasn't comfortable with what was happening because she was behaving very differently just a few minutes ago with other dogs, so I picked her up and tried to remove her from the situation but the other dog kept chasing her to play. The owner comes to get the other dog and tells me that "picking up is not best practice"...

I set my dog down and started walking away again, only for the same dog to charge at my dog from across the field in the same way. My dog rolled on her back again, and I picked her up. The other owner comes to get her dog again, and I calmly ask her to get her dog, and she flips out-- tells me that her dog is a pup and just wanted to play cus my dog is a pup too, and that I shouldn't come to the dog park if I don't want to socialize my dog.

A quick Google search after the event suggests that I should use my best judgment in these situations, and that's what I did, but after the reaction of that other dog owner, I'm second-guessing my decisions.

- Should I have let the pups do their thing even if my puppy seemed kind of uncomfortable?

- Given my description of events, was my puppy uncomfortable to begin with?

- Was there a better way for me to interrupt their play session?

- Is it ok to pick up my pup if she seems uncomfortable or there is an unsafe situation?

There have also been other times when older dogs that are not very patient with an overly friendly puppy like mine get snappy with my pup. I've always removed my pup from those situations (by leash rather than picking up), but this thing today makes me wonder if I'm wrong about that. My puppy doesn't know the difference between a dog that wants to play and a dog that doesn't. She just thinks every dog is a playmate.

- Is it ok to remove my puppy from interacting with a dog that doesn't want to play?

- Should I try to find a place that's exclusive to puppies for her playtime, or is it ok to keep going to a dog park where she's one of the younger dogs there?