Should you let dogs roughhouse?
Nash Rosenbaum
2025-07-02 03:56:11
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: 13
When puppies play with each other, they use their mouths. Therefore, puppies usually want to bite or mouth hands during play or when being petted. With puppies, this is rarely aggressive behavior in which the intent is to do harm. The goals of working with this normal puppy behavior are to redirect your puppy’s desire to put something in her mouth onto acceptable chew toys and to teach her to be gentle when a hand is in her mouth. You must also teach your puppy to be gentle with hands, and that nipping results in unpleasant consequences for her. Teach your puppy that nipping turns off any attention and social interaction with you. Never play tug-of-war or wrestling games with your puppy if you’re having a nipping problem. These types of games encourage out-of-control behavior, grabbing, lunging and competition with you. Dogs should never be left alone with children under 10 and parents should monitor closely all interactions between their children and dogs.
Shanel Hermiston
2025-06-21 00:59:42
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: 5
When we allow puppies to roughhouse with each other, especially with larger puppies they quickly move from lighthearted play to sparring and mock battle. You can tell when a puppy is about to go ballistic during play. His energy level will become increasingly intense and explosive. As his brain fills with adrenaline he quickly moves into a state he cannot change or stop. This is when play turns to sparring and mock battle, when the competition starts to feel too real and puppies slip into fight mode. The downside of allowing your puppy to roughhouse with another puppy, a grown dog, or a person is that once he’s learned rough play is permissible it’s challenging to teach him to stop. If an adult dog decides your puppy is being rude and decides to discipline him it could result in being pinned down, bitten, chased, even badly injured. Better to teach your pup how to be calm, learn a new way to interact, and throttle back with those sharp weapons.
Isadore Smith
2025-06-20 22:53:28
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: 11
Roughhousing is just part of the fun and in most cases, it’s completely healthy, safe and harmless. It’s totally normal for dogs to play-bite, bark, chase, swipe, and lunge, as long as it’s in a gentle and friendly manner. But sometimes growling, biting, jumping, barking, etc. can shift from playful to aggressive. When dogs play, it often takes the form of play fighting, play biting and wrestling. Although it can be fun and harmless, sometimes this can intensify into unsafe and serious scraps if you do not observe your dog closely. If you encounter an aggressive moment between dogs, it’s often not enough to let them work it out on their own. It’s better to keep the pups safe and intervene, rather than letting the dogs continue to engage in a potentially dangerous situation. To prevent playing turning into fighting, it’s important to watch carefully for stress signals and warning signals.
Natalia Bruen
2025-06-20 20:43:30
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: 8
Roughhousing with our dog is a personal choice. If we’re not training for a specific task, in which speed of reaction and hard actions are needed, like in police work, playing with the dog this way could have negative consequences over time. When we roughhouse with our dog, because we’re not dogs, we don’t master the rules of play and will often bring the excitement level out of control. We’re teaching the dog that humans are fun playmates to wrestle with and jump on. If we adopt the dog when we’re young adults, will it be OK for the dog to play this way when we have toddlers or when our friends visit with their children? The dog will not always know the difference and understand when it’s alright to play this way or when it’s not. Certain movements that we make or things that we say, that are similar to those used during roughhousing could trigger rough responses from the dog. Keeping everybody safe, the family, the visitors and the dog should always be the priority when making the decision to roughhouse or not. Any behavior that has the potential to hurt a person can lead to injuries or lawsuits and the dog will pay the consequences. The question becomes: how important is it for us to roughhouse?
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