Big dog allowed here in particular

I am almost endlessly fascinated by dog signs. The example this time is not a direct dog forbidding sign, but instead signaling a place where a dog is welcome.

The sign here has a silhouette-like picture of a dog, possibly a great dane, with the text "Dog park" written below in Finnish and Swedish.¹ Below the sign we have a sturdy looking metal ring embedded into a stone wall. Both the image of the big dog and the sturdy loop work to signal this as a place that should be able to hold even a big and strong dog.

The image of the dog itself has the dog facing sideways with its eyes not visible. In particular it is not focusing its attention to the sign viewee. The dog is not the active actor here, it is in the role of an object that can be attached here if needed. We also note that the dog's tongue is out, which to me seems to often be the opposite imagery compared to depicting a dog's threatening teeth.

So the sign wishes to convey that the dog in question is not threatening or dangerous. But why use a picture of a big dog then? In my eyes the undercurrent here is that this is a place where you might want to leave your big dog instead of bringing it into a store. But instead of posting a negative "no dogs allowed sign" that might make a dog-owning customer think less of the shop and its owner, we have a more positive twist of "hey, wouldn't here be a nice and safe place for your darling dog to hang out for a while?"

I think this is a good example of a subtle version of the effect where designating a particular place for X also implies that maybe X is not allowed in other places.

As a final note, I ran across a similar dog parking area in a very different neighbourhood. The first image is from a neighbourhood called Kauklahti in Espoo, very close to the capital, while the second one here is from a small town called Pusula about 100km to the north.

This park was just outside a grocery store, and the main message seems to be the same - "perhaps you would prefer leaving your dog hitched to this strong hook". Though the (large) dog image is missing. Noteworthy is also the lack of Swedish title - the percentage of people who speak Swedish as their natural language is only half of the national average in the county compared to about double in the location of the first sign.