Something I have been seeing quite a bit of lately are dogs who are getting really aggressive with their owners when they are playing with them or refusing to play altogether. A case in point was a puppy I was demoing play with at class recently. He bit me twice in thigh so hard that he ripped my jeans and left me with several punctures and bruises. The owner said this was a regular occurrence with him and that he becomes aggressive every time they try to play with him. She was understandably very concerned. Turns out, she had two teenage boys at home that liked to roughhouse with him and, by the way he responded to me at class, it didn’t seem like the pup was finding play to be very enjoyable.

The problem is, when we play with our dogs, we often play like the strong, agile PEOPLE that we are and we don’t always realise that our dogs can’t – or don’t want to – play as rough or with as much power as we do. Just like you wouldn’t use your full strength if you were playing with a young child, it’s important to learn to self handicap when playing with your dog, too. They need to feel like or believe that they have a chance at winning at least some of the time. If we come on too strong, our play can feel quite threatening to our dogs, which for many dogs triggers aggression and, in some cases, causes the dogs to check out from our interactions all together.

Here are a couple of quick tips to help you soften your play style to help ensure that your dog enjoys the game as much as you do:

These are by no means hard and fast rules for every dog, but making some simple changes to your body language, movement and style of play will make playing together with your dog a lot more fun for both of you again.

Until next time,
Darcie Jennings
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