This week’s Talking Tip is all about dogs playing nicely with other dogs.
In general, I’m very choosy about which dogs I allow Gus to play with – just like I was very choosy about which other children my girls played with. Play needs to be balanced and fair in both physical and behavioural terms, for dogs and for humans.
And it’s not a good idea to allow your dog to play freely as much as they want with other dogs. Some owners encourage it because they mistakenly think it’s “good socialisation”. But it isn’t. It just teaches your dog that they can run up and play with any other dog they want – which will give you recall problems and your dog will become that nuisance pest that everyone tries to avoid, as well as your dog becoming more and more frustrated if prevented from running up to every other dog they see…
Anyway, off one of my hobby horses (don’t even start me on dog parks…) and onto what good play is. Good dog dog play is about matched dogs interacting nicely.
In the middle of a class one summer, Tippi and Gus gave an impromptu display of lovely dog-dog play. So, I did a commentary to point out all the lovely things that were happening and it became one of our Talking Tips. Watch the Tip to find out more.
You can find today’s Talking Tip here along with all the others from previous weeks.
Enjoy!
Have a good weekend,
Keep training and keep safe,
Carol
PS If your dog has a recall problem, join our next 6 week Perfect Pet online class starting 23rd June, to learn how to teach a brilliant recall among many other things…