Should you play rough with a puppy?
Adrain Goodwin
2025-07-13 09:33:14
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Puppies can play rough. Puppy play consists of chasing, pouncing, barking, growling and biting. Although normal play can become intense, it’s important to be able to distinguish normal from abnormal behavior. In normal play, a puppy may bow, present its front and side to the owner, wag its tail, dart back and forth, emit high pitched barks and growls, and spontaneously attack people or objects. Generally, its ears will be up and its mouth will be open and relaxed. Puppies less than 12 weeks of age that react to pain or fear by growling or snapping are responding abnormally. Punishment methods of training have been shown to worsen aggression. Don’t punish – instead, reward the pet when it does something right.
Eva Hagenes
2025-07-13 09:23:44
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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.
Jessika Stokes
2025-07-13 08:18:37
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We push the dog around and Fido comes back mouthing, jumping and grappling with us. 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 develop those needed drives. 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. Just like children, dogs need us to be consistent. If one moment we’re allowing jumping and mouthing, we can’t expect them to understand that just because we’re now wearing expensive work clothes, that behavior will no longer be tolerated. We’re responsible for our dog’s behavior during their entire life. When a dog is allowed to play with humans like they would with rambunctious dogs, we take the chance that the dog may react in the same way with other people. The choice of roughhousing or not has to be taken wisely since it may have negative implications for the dog. Any behavior that has the potential to hurt a person can lead to injuries or lawsuits and the dog will pay the consequences. Keeping everybody safe, the family, the visitors and the dog should always be the priority when making the decision to roughhouse or not.
Werner O'Conner
2025-07-13 06:02:03
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When we allow puppies to roughhouse with each other, especially with larger puppies they quickly move from lighthearted play to sparring and mock battle. What they are doing is reverting/regressing to sibling behaviors that encourage competition and bringing down one’s opponent. 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. 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. Better to teach your pup how to be calm, learn a new way to interact, and throttle back with those sharp weapons. 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. Whatever the outcome he’ll carry that memory the rest of his life.
Cristal Krajcik
2025-07-13 04:59:32
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Dogs love wrestling around on the floor, just as many people do, but wrestling teaches dogs to play rough with people, and it can lead to serious trouble. Perhaps not with the person who started it, but more likely with the little girl whose parents are suing you over the "play bite" to their daughter's face. Instead, play ball, play Frisbee, play soccer, let your dog chase you, teach heel like a game, teach your dog to search for hidden toys, enroll in tracking or agility classes, do tricks together, herd sheep, go hunting, have a wonderful joyful time together, but please, please, please don't wrestle play with your dog. I think what makes sense is to sometimes incorporate rough-and-tumble play, but to stop if teeth so much as touch skin. I want her to think I'm fun and to let my boyfriend bond with her that way, but it seems like there just should be some boundaries, especially for an already kind of mouthy pup like Tess.
Ulises Mraz
2025-07-13 04:32:36
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: 6
Puppies play with their littermates constantly. From around two weeks, when their eyes open, until they go to their own homes, they spend almost all of their waking hours wrestling with each other. It’s a critical time for social development because it is when they learn bite inhibition and good dog manners. It is good exercise and socialization for them and fun for us to watch. If two dogs are wrestling and it seems too rough to you, with all that growling and snarling, body-slamming, and biting of each other’s necks, this is normal dog play. Dogs may do the “play bow” when playing, where their front end is down, and back end is in the air. Although play-growling is exaggerated and friendly, it can be loud and can sound scary. Dogs who are play-growling are over-exaggerating their snarls, which may make this noise sound scarier than if they were actually fighting. Dog wrestling can be fun when playing, but it’s also something that should be monitored. Especially if the breed is small and a larger breed is trying to wrestle with them. Not all dogs understand their size in comparison to other dogs.
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