Playing Rough?

Wow, that tires me out watching that  [&:]  I wouldn't say she's being rough at all!  They both look like they're having so much fun and getting a lot of exercise!  My dogs are much more rough, I actually have had some concerns about it, but they don't hurt each other at all.  My dog Nikki will attack Cairo's feet constantly and Cairo will latch onto her neck and they really go at it.  They also make a lot of ferocious sounding noises and snarls, but their tails are always wagging and they're clearly playing, but I'm pretty sure it's not normal.  Nikki has never understood how to interact with other dogs, most probably because we did not socialize her enough as a puppy.  She doesn't fight with other dogs, but she just doesn't seem to understand play.  On the rare occassion she does try to play she starts snarling and growling, which frightens the other dog away.  Cairo is actually learning from her and now plays just as rough, and I don't know how to prevent that [:'(]
 
This is what I'd consider rough play:
 

 

 

 

 
Nikki will hold onto Cairo's neck so hard sometimes that he yips and whines...but he always comes back for more. And they both seem to enjoy it well enough, judging by their smiles... []
 

Looks good to me........my dogs do the same thing it is like Tag your it!!  Then they will get rougher too, so who am I to judge, LOL!!

They look to be having a grand time!
Julie

It looks like they are having a blast with one another. I don't see any rough fighting with one another they look like they are happy with one another. Boy what a work out they are  having![]

All those dogs look like they are having a great time! But what do the sound like?

Sofia and her sister Athena both have these insidious, scary DEEP GROWLS and even roars that they do when they play. They do sound like wolves having a fight. When they were together it really, really freaked people out. I was at my son's house and Athena was playing with the other dog, Lily, who is a beagle/pit mix who just turned two. Athena is four and is handily the dominant dog. And a good thing, too. Ole, my son, told me that people get all upset all the time thinking that Athena is killing Lily by the sounds Athena makes. He said he's had people hearing it over the phone and get all freaked out thinking there is a dog fight going on. The only thing is, all the sound is coming from ONE dog! Lily's having a ball!

Sofie and Athena are coydogs, and have problems playing with other "normal" dogs because their signals get misread as aggression a lot. But when they are playing, they look like dogs doing normal dog things, they just sound incredibly scary! Here they are when they were pups.

(Still having loads of trouble getting stuff to upload correctly. Have to upload every single picture TWICE, and now they are only showing as attachments and not in the text. This is really frickin' tedious. Grrrr, as Sofie would say!)

ORIGINAL: jeano

All those dogs look like they are having a great time! But what do the sound like?

Sofia and her sister Athena both have these insidious, scary DEEP GROWLS and even roars that they do when they play. They do sound like wolves having a fight. When they were together it really, really freaked people out.

Eevee plays like this! She's very vocal and loud when she plays and it scares people lmfao... so I have to reassure them that she's just very loud when she's playing, and she's not eating their dog.

Is there any chance she has ACD in her?  She plays a lot like the ACDs and kelpies that I've seen.

I wouldn't say that she's being inappropriate.  There was a nice amount of give and take and role reversals between the dogs, which is important to see.  She's also not constantly in the other dog's face.

What does she do if the other dog wants a break?  Can you call her out of play?  I strongly encourage all of the students in my puppy class to call their dogs out of play every couple of minutes or so, both to reinforce a recall that can be fun (yes, you had to stop playing to come to me, but now I'm letting you play more!) and to keep play from going over the top.

The only thing that I'd watch, and this is my pet play thing, is the vocalization.  It didn't sound like she was growling, it sounded like the "having fun rowr rowr rowr".  If she is growling or barking a lot in play, then I would call her out of it and let her settle, then send her back to play.  Patricia McConnell talks about arousal levels getting higher and higher and higher and then the slightest silly thing pushing play into a fight - kind of like "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out" sort of deal.  Or like a group of kids trash talking each other on the playground.  One school I worked at couldn't allow trash talking because it went from teasing to fists in no-time flat as the game got more intense.  So in my house, a "whoo hoo this is fun!" yeti-noise is allowed, but no actual growls or barks.

That doesn't look overly rough at all. That actually looks calm compared to Max and Millie's games. They do things like Nikki said, but not the foot stuff. Max has so much extra skin that Millie can drag him by it for a few inches before it hurts him. Your video looks like what Max and this Mastiff Benny in the neighborhood used to do when they played. They'd race around just like that. 

As to sounds, there's generally a lot of good natured growling, barking, and strange little grumbly noises - all very different from the deep gutteral sound or loud bark Maggie uses when she's on the offense.

Maggie is a shelter dog so I don't know her breed background, but she herds like and has the build of a BC and the speckles and attitude of an ACD, so ACD blood is one of my suspicions.

I can call her out of play pretty easy generally and the dogs she plays with really never get tired of playing and want out - she's usually the one who goes off on her own for a break.

She did gang up w/ Copper on a beagle mix that came in to play - he pinned the dog down w/ his nose and Maggie engaged in some pretty invasive sniffing w/ a stiffer body posture. She outright went after a Golden that came in, despite having 'happy, eager' body position while I was holding her back by the harness, and the GR continued the fight, even after I picked Maggie up out of the conflict by her harness. The GR is generally a very fearful dog and was quite offput by Copper's full body contact play style before the incident w/ Maggie.

Anybody else have a dog that gets along fabulously and appropriately with some dogs and absolutely can't stand others? Maggie does guard me and we're working on that but I'm still curious about her discerning friend tastes - the only common thread in her friends is an utter disregard for her 'trash talking' and posturing other than to back off. Dogs that fall over belly up or who return the challenge are quickly placed in her 'enemies' group.

Looks fine to me. Looks pretty calm compared to what goes on around here!
 
 Boss is fairly quiet during play, but Gracie sounds horrible.. like she's about to take Boss' face off any minute, but it's all just play. She has even got Boss making a little noise during play now too.
 
Sometimes I have to tell them to shut up because they play so much I can't even hear the t.v.  I called the gas company this morning to make a payment and had to go and shut myself in another room because the play got so rough and loud.

She plays just like Loki and Odin do. Sometimes they're really rough with each other, or other dogs. But they're both young, so I figure they've just got a lot of energy. They grab each others legs and bite each others necks when they're playing. If they start making too much noise, growling etc, I try to settle them down and then let them go again.

ORIGINAL: trishanne420

Looks fine to me. Looks pretty calm compared to what goes on around here!

Boss is fairly quiet during play, but Gracie sounds horrible.. like she's about to take Boss' face off any minute, but it's all just play. She has even got Boss making a little noise during play now too.

Sometimes I have to tell them to shut up because they play so much I can't even hear the t.v. I called the gas company this morning to make a payment and had to go and shut myself in another room because the play got so rough and loud.

Sounds like Athena and Sofia. Imagine two Gracies playing....

There is some rule that during the most important part of a mystery show, where the most important conversations are taking place, that dogs either play really really loudly, or grab a squeaky toy and run up and down in front of the TV going SQUEAKY SQUEAKY SQUEAKY!

When Lucy and Kayla would play boy was that something to watch... there is one part of the yard where they would always do it that we called the boxing ring.  Teeth flying, all the strange growls and stuff, rolling all around.... they would run as fast as possible and separate and go right back towards each other and jump up, every once in a while SLAM right into each other in the air.  They just LOVED it... no one ever got hurt, they just get into it!
 
I would think too much of it unless your dealing with someone who doesnt want their dog to be playing rough for whatever reason... then just dont let them play[]

Your Maggie could be my Dingos long lost sister. Hes a blue heeler mix.