Aggressive play, inappropriate?
I brought Kuma home at 8 weeks, which I now understand waiting until 10 weeks would have been better (especially with bite inhibition). She's almost 12 weeks now and I've been taking her to safe puppy play groups twice a week since she got her first round of vacs, and by safe I mean high-rep, vaccination required businesses.
Now here's my concern. I worry, because she plays with other dogs as if they are toys, most often with fluffy toy breeds! Outside of play groups, she plays with a maltipoo who belongs to our neighbor on a weekly basis. As a puppy, she's extremely high energy, but that isn't the issue. It's the ear/mouth/tail tugging. She'll literally latch onto another dogs mouth and tug on it like it's a rope toy! It's frightening. I understand dogs will often roughhouse, and that typically they'll vocalize pain or when things have gone too far. The maltipoo seems to not mind her aggressive play much, but other puppy owners at play groups get concerned when seeing my Kuma playing tug-a-war with their pups tail! I am too. I hate to have to remove her from play to change her behavior, so distracting her with toys has been pretty effective. Though at times, she absolutely won't let go unless I pick her up. She just doesn't seem to be catching onto the signs when puppies yelp in pain from her rough bites, and seeing her tug at their skin/body parts makes me feel awful.
I've never seen this type of behavior from a puppy outside of small tail nibbling and I get that dogs love playing with their mouths, I just don't want this to develop into a pattern to where it becomes her understanding that this is an acceptable way to play. Has anyone else had puppies playing this way?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Usually they can work things out but this does sound a bit much! Try interrupting her with hand claps when she goes over the line, but you may need to remove her.
I would suggest maybe trying to find some puppy-savvy adult dogs OR a slightly older larger puppy who will put her in her place a little bit. Basically she's being a bit of a puppy bully and it sounds like the pups she is playing with are not robust enough or outgoing enough to correct her.
You can and should intervene, but some lessons are best learned from another dog. I would not be concerned that it means you'll have other problems; she may have had a very rough litter and they just played this way.
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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on
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Your instincts are right! You have a very dominant puppy and she should not be allowed to bully the other ones. The remedy is to have her with pups that are larger in size, or older than she is, who can stand their ground. If her play is still too rough, I would remove her from the group. There are many other more important things you can do with her. Dominant pups are usually smart. Start puppy obedience and get her focused on you, instead of other dogs....
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Permalink Reply by Jessica Pao on
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I just fear that removing her from either of the groups would deprive her of correcting the way she is playing now, before it's too late. I don't want this to be the way she interacts with all dogs that come along or even just the household dogs. I have a pug who's antisocial with no teeth, which doesn't really teach her much on bite inhibition and I feel that if anything, it encourages the behavior when I'm not there to instantly remove her (though thankfully my pug will escape by jumping onto higher furniture). I've been hoping to find an older dog who can teach her, but so far I only know the puppies at these playgroups :/ Few play really well with her and enjoy it, just not many.
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