# How do you play with your dog/s?



## APBTLove

I was just wondering how everyone here handles the physical play with their dogs. I know people who believe you shouldn't play using your body/hands etc. as in wrestling with the dog, only inanimate objects. 

It also depends greatly on what your dog likes, obviously.


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## qbchottu

My dogs play rough and I'm pretty physical with them also. We wrestle and bump into each other. They play bite my forearms and hands (nothing painful). I taught them bite inhibition with human flesh when they were young so we don't have any issues with that. When I play bow to them, that's their sign that they can act rowdy and play rough with me. They aren't allowed to do it in any other context. But they can jump on me, wrestle, knock me over, bite, chase etc etc when play is initiated. Once I say "Ok, that's all" and clap, then they stop and they know to go back to normal manners. I know lots of people warn against that sort of play, but I've found it really helps because I get a lot more focus from them during obedience and bite training. Our bond has gotten stronger with regular physical play as well.


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## GSKnight

I play rough and wrestle with Viktor sometimes. I did not do this at first, only having him 2 months now, but as we have gotten used to each other, it seems fine (and fun). The other night, he got a little out of hand, so I had to settle him down, but he seems to have gotten it.


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## Good_Karma

I'm not really comfortable with using my hands/arms to play with my dogs. I generally use a tug toy if I want to play like that. Mostly we throw balls or sticks for them.


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## Lilie

I think it totally depends on the dog. If I had a dog that had a hard, rough play drive, I certainly wouldn't stick my hands in his/her mouth. I can say that Hondo doesn't like to have my body parts shoved in his mouth. He likes squeaky toys. 

The roughest he gets is attacking my horse head slippers while they are still on my feet. 

Hubby is more physical with Hondo. But if it starts getting rough, Hondo will stop and bring back a toy.


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## NewbieShepherdGirl

I wrestle Sasha a lot. She doesn't understand playing with toys (though now will occasionally play tug with me). We get pretty physical, her biting (more like mouthing) my hands, arms, and legs. It's funny because I never had to teach her not to bite too hard, in fact when she thinks she's bitten to hard (she's never bitten harder than I'm comfortable with, but harder than she's comfortable with) she'll stop instantly and kiss the area and then won't play anymore for a while :crazy:

We also play chase when we're at my mom's (not enough room in the apartment for that stuff and I can't take her off leash here either). She LOVES that game. It's really funny to do in my mom's house because she'll run behind the couch and then I can run to either side fast enough not to give her a way to escape and she starts getting a bit mouthy lol! I can just see her little thought bubble, "Mom you're not playing the game right!!! I'm supposed to zoom all around the living room and you're supposed to try and catch me not trap me behind the couch!" Every once in a while my mom will get in on this game and she'll have to out smart both of us. That gets fun. 

As far as the biting goes, I only let her do it because she won't play with other people that way. She will sort of rough house with my mom and brother but she way gentler with my mom, never mouths her, and with my brother she only does it to get him to chase her (he's faster than Mom and Grammy and thus more fun to play with). She will let certain other people chase her, but will not wrestle or even really play tug with anyone else. With other people she just lets them have the tug; with me she'll drag me across the living room. She's also good about if I say we're done then we're done. I sometimes get a dramatic groan because she wanted to keep going but she doesn't push it.


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## APBTLove

Thanks for moving this mods, I really didn't mean to post in stories- brain fart!


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## APBTLove

For me it depends on the dog. Jaeger and I wrestle very rough, he loves it, I throw him around and flip him over, sit on him and shove him and he gets that big crazy smile on his face and beats me up. He knows when I say "Stop." or "Okay, we're done." play is over and he has to act like a sane dog again.

My little Pom mix plays very rough with me too, well, she's rough, I just push her around and she bites and growls and acts crazy and runs around 100mph and then swoops in for another attack. 

My old GSD, Dutch, never liked to wrestle, once in a while she'd bat you with her paws and lightly mouth your hands but she was SUCH a softie, she took it very personally if you pushed her. She only really like playing fetch and being loved on.

The one dog I stopped playing rough with was Roxy, my foster APBT mix. She was a firecracker who was never taught manners and had unusually sharp teeth. Once she got riled up playing she'd ram you in the face and totally ignore commands. I had to pick her up as she was zooming past the last time this happened and tell her to knock it off. That's a dog I stuck to toys with. She had no sense of what was too rough due to how she was raised.


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## sashadog

My bf used to wrestle with Sasha because thats the kind of dog he wanted to begin with. He grew up with two brothers and big dopey goldens and all they did was wrestle. I was never supportive of it simply because she is pretty rough and my other dogs are not tolerant of rough housing... gotta love those cattle dogs  
I finally got him knock it off when Sasha started mouthing anybody she met. We would walk past some kids in the park and they would stick out their hand to pet her and she would mouth their arm. We would correct it right away of course but it wasn't worth the risk for us. The wrestling was more for my bf benefit anyways and Sasha is just as happy playing chase around the house or playing with a toy.

The other two we have don't play. They're princess's and playing is below them...


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## KentuckyGSDLover

Every German Shepherd I've had has loved to play hide'n'seek. When my daughter was little, she'd tell Bear to sit and stay, then hide and yell okay, and he'd bound off to find her. He absolutely loved to do this. Buddy and I used to play a similar game around the couch (yes, I'd get down on my hands and knees and hide on a side of the couch and we'd peek around at each other then run in circles). Bear loved to chase tennis balls, Buddy was great with a Frisbee. I don't know yet what Reyka will like to play but I suspect Frisbee (because she leaps high and is a high speed runner) will be her game. I only do short gentle "wrestles" (more like play tussles) because I discourage play-biting/mouthing, and they end with a belly rub to keep it from getting wild.


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## vicky2200

I play with toys, I hide and have them find me, I hide and jump out at them and they run around the house CRAZY, I wrestle, and I don't mind them chewing on my hands/arms if they are gentle. Ditto and Daisy are gentle (Ditto usually doesn't bite my hands at all, but if she does it doesn't hurt at all.) Dakota never learned his own strength. Now that he is older, he doesn't play much and has a hard time playing like he used to (hide and seek, untie the toy from the railing, tug.) Now if he plays, he likes to chew a toy, or my hand. It usually gets too rough and I have to end it, but not so rough that I am bleeding. He listens when I say enough, so I don't discourage the playing. As long as the dog is enjoying it and nobody (including the dog) is getting hurt, I don't see that it matters how you play.


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## Zisso

Mostly with tugs and toys, but their absolute favorite is a flirt pole. One will be in the kennel while I play with the other. They get to catch the toy 3x's then I switch them out and play with dog#2. Each get 3 rounds with the FP. By the 3rd round they are slowing down and out of breath and I am pretty dizzy. I also use this as an opportunity to do some OB and I am teaching the kenneled dog(s) to be quiet and wait for their turn. Works well too for those days when you need to to get their heart pumping with a bit of exercise without leaving home


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## AgileGSD

I just made a video of my and my puppy playing in one of his favorite ways


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## sashadog

What an awesome video!!  That is one happy pup!


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## spidermilk

I think we have played every game. Dax's favorite are probably:

1. Fetch with his Cuz ball.
2. Chase-It! woo he loves Chase-It and I love using it for training because I don't have to reach down and pick anything up or constantly throw something (my arm gets sore...).
3. Hide and Seek- my DH and I go to a large, usually empty park by our house and split up, then we call Dax back and forth between us. To make it harder we hide in tall grass or behind trees, run around, etc. This is probably my favorite game- to see Dax looking all happy smiling running towards me is a treat.
4. Wrestling. I didn't do wrestling where he could bite us when he was younger, but now we do. You have to get him pretty revved up for him to do a bite- and it is GENTLE. Mostly he just play bows and I play bow- gently grab his tail or foot or something and he makes a crazy monkey noise.
5. Chasing each other- self-explanatory, but Dax gets sick of it pretty fast (which is good, because I certainly can't catch him and he can easily catch up to me!).


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## doggiedad

play tug (with ropes, tug toys, towels).

tease him (jump at him, run from him, run to him,
grab him, get on my knees for light wrestling,
run with him.

throwing the ball or kong toy for retrieving.

"find it" ( i hide something and send him to find it).

general walking and long walks in the woods.

lots of the above i play indoors as well as outside.


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