Understanding Dog Play: What to look for in good dog play.

Dog play can be confusing sometimes. It can look a bit rough or even violent. So how do we tell when the play is good and when it might be getting a bit out of hand? Join Si for an introduction to dog play. A topic we're sure we will be coming back to in the future.

Thank you for listening to The Sociable Dog Pod. Find us on X/Twitter @sociabledog

Transcript

(Music)

 Welcome to the Sociable Dog Pod, the podcast for anyone who wants to know more about the extraordinary relationship we have with our dogs, and why we don't always understand each other. We'll be digging into the roots of dog behavior so we can get to know our best friends better and make our lives with them a little richer. We'll be busting some of those sticky myths about why they do what they do, exploring how they learn, and trying to interpret their language. We'll talk science, we'll share stories, have some laughs, and make some interesting discoveries all along the way. I'm SI Wooler, and I've been working with dogs and their humans for more than 15 years. So let's talk dogs.

   I'm being left to my own devices this week, and frankly, without Nina here to keep me on the straight and narrow, it could go anywhere. Don't get me wrong, I've done some planning for this. I've made some notes, written down some subheadings and topics, and that sort of thing that might interest you all. But ultimately, it's hard to know where we might end up. But there's nothing wrong with the odd tangent between friends now, is there?

   So this week's starter for sit is play. Why dogs do it, what it's really all about, is it just fun or is there a deeper, more profound meaning behind the antics that we often see with our dogs? And how do we know when our dogs are in a rough and tumble in the park, that they're having fun?

   I mean, even dogs that don't much like people or other dogs, will still entertain themselves with play, maybe with something like a squeaky toy or a stick from the woodland or one of your best trainers. I had some of those once. I think it was 1992.

  Anyway, there will be people out there, perhaps you are amongst them, who have a pretty good grasp of what dog play entails and what it all means for our dogs. And that's excellent. I'm hopeful this won't be dull for you, so stick around at the very least to let me know if I was right or argue with me about anything you don't agree with.

   There are others amongst you who will find the idea of dogs playing with you or other dogs just a bit daunting.

  And I get that. Dog play can be rough and tumble and can involve a lot of sharp, pointy teeth trying to bitey, bitey, fighty, fighty you or the neighbours chihuahua.

 Where was I? Oh, oh, yes. Right. If you worry about what seems like violent play, I get it, because it can sometimes be difficult to tell what is play and what is the doggy version of a string of expletives, right? Well, I'm sure most of us have been in that place where our dogs have been cheerfully playing together when the temperature seems to change. A big chill drifts across the plane and in unison, everybody says,

  “do you think that's OK or is it getting out of hand?”

 Well, I've been there too. And anybody, trainer or not, who has a rough and tumble dog player who tells you they haven't been there is probably telling you porkies.

 But there is a way to tell if all is well without there being a downside to the intervention.

 And I'll tell you what that is later in the podcast.

 Right. Back to the main question. What on earth is all that stuff about? Good, bad, ugly?

 Well, here's some things that you will likely see in dog play that might tip you off to the answer.

 In healthy dog play, you're going to see most likely fighting behaviour. So like wrestling or snarling, predatory behaviour like stalking, chasing or grabbing.

 You'll see running away and you'll see courting behaviour, the language of love.

 But notice that I said healthy dog behaviour. That's because all of these things are perfectly normal. They're normal in life and they're normal in play with a with a caveat that it's really important to try and avoid anybody getting hurt during play.

 So the tip off is it looks like life.

 Play is life rehearsal. It's rehearsal for catching and killing food. A somewhat redundant feature of this model, Madam, I know. But funny how some things stick around long after they've been superseded by a new version. Hey, oh, one of those things. So there's chasey chasey, catchy, catchy stuff. There's survival stuff. Run away. Or I'm going to get you before you get me.

 Or there's well, hello, would you like to come up to mine and watch The Lady of the Tramp?

 Put bluntly. And in my view, far less poetically, that's reproduction.

 Now, all of this life preparation can be done in play without the risk of harm to anyone because everyone involved understands that it's play and not an invite to a duel at dawn on the college green. Choose your weapons, gentlemen. I'll take the sharp, pointy teeth. Thank you very much.

 But I hear you cry in protest from the circle seats. How do you know that the intention is play and not actual combat?

 And that's a good question. It's an important question.

 If that were not clear from the outset, we'd have dogs misunderstanding and getting the ump while others were looking bemused and appealing for calm with a kind of I wanted to play look on their face.

 Given there could be biting, fighting, growling, snarling and all of those post watershed things involved in play, how does anybody not get hurt? Well, I think there are two parts to a satisfactory answer to that question. The first part is all about preschool. The time dogs spend as very young puppies with their siblings roughing and tumbling to their little hearts content. Bless them.

 Playing and wrestling comes pretty naturally to puppies. They'll creep up on one another and launch themselves from hidey holes to ambush their brothers and sisters. And in return, their brothers and sisters learn to confound the plot by sneaking around the other way at the last moment. “You scoundrel sir”.

 This is the time that puppies start to learn something about those needle teeth they seem to have in their mouths and with which they can assault their hapless brothers and sisters as well as their parents, their biological parents, that is.

 Those little teeth are quite useful weaponry even at six weeks old or so. Given the right amount of pressure, those little suckers can hurt. And if left unchecked during puppyhood, cute little puppy with a needle sharp bite is going to sting a bit. And the big dog he or she grows up to be is going to have some much more sizable swords packed away in that mouth of theirs.

 And they're not going to be cute if the dog has no concept of how hard to bite during play without hurting somebody.

 Possibly you. Because this time you won't be saying, "Oh, boy, sweetie pie, some sharp little needles there." Now, you're going to be saying something much more grown up. If it's you on the receiving end of the bitey, bitey, fighty, fighty, it's not going to be funny.

 Tell me I'm wrong.  Now, fortunately, there is a mechanism for regulating how hard puppies bite during play. It's a bit like a pressure valve that if the maximum pressure is exceeded, the system shuts everything down so that it doesn't start to violently rattle and then explode. The mechanism is all of the other puppies.

 Everyone is everyone else's referee.

 So here's how it works.

 Puppy number one comes along and says, "Hey, let's wrestle."

 Puppy number two, feeling so disposed, agrees, and wrestling commences.
 Now at some point, puppy number one bites puppy number two. Not hard. He opens his mouth wide, growls ferociously, and very theatrically bears down on his partner in crime but applies very little pressure, so all is well.

 A little later on, puppy two does the same to puppy one. Only she bears down and bites with much greater pressure, causing her brother to wince, yelp, and stop playing, scuttling off to tell anyone who will listen to what his mean sister just did to him. So puppy two is left without a playmate, which is something akin to a natural catastrophe for a puppy.
 Next time these two puppies are playing together, assuming that puppy one hasn't put in a formal complaint to off pup and won't now play with his sister, she does the same thing, and once again the play ends.

 Now play ending is pretty expensive behaviour for a little puppy, so learning in this situation is important. Soon puppy two works out that it's the pressure of her bite that is the problem. If she bites, say, half the pressure, her brother not only carries on playing but actually gets more enthusiastic for the play. Sweet!

 So what just happened?

 Puppy two has begun to learn the consequences of biting too hard during play. She's developing an acquired bite inhibition.

 So let's stop for a second and talk about acquired bite inhibition because it's actually really quite cool.

 Acquired bite inhibition, or ABI, once it's learned in puppyhood usually transfers to adolescent and adult life too. And not just that. If you think that's cool, wait until you get a load of this useful fact. ABI tends to translate into how hard older dogs bite when they're upset.
 That means if they have a soft mouth, you know, inverted commas over the soft, in play, they'll have the same or similar ABI when it comes to arguing or threatening or assaulting, whether that is dogs or people or whatever.

 Bonus, right? I mean, it's an absolutely indelible measure, but it's not bad.

 So that's ABI. And I'm willing to bet that we'll be coming back to that topic in later episodes of the Sociable Dog Podcast. So mark my words, keep an eye out for that.

 Now, so, we have one life skill that is learned in play and is replicated, usually, in real world risky situations, that everyone lived to fight another day and all that.

 Cool, right? Excellent.

 So, what about all the other stuff? How do the dogs know that a fight isn't a fight or a predatory pursuit isn't a full-on hunting expedition to get some supper?  Of course, if dogs were to follow through on their pre-installed predatory sequence perpetrated on one of their siblings or playmates, things could get serious. This is where things get clever and why it's quite useful for us dog-human parents to know a thing or two about dog body language. After all, it'd be something of a shame if our dogs lost out on fun times with other dogs or us, for that matter, because their harmless overtures had been misinterpreted in some way.

 Right. I'll stop keeping you hanging and tell all. Dogs have a codebook.

 Not literally, obviously. I mean, they can't read, but they have a kind of codebook stored in their psyche that they can refer to at times when intent might be a bit ambiguous.

  The codes in this codebook are called meta-signals.

 They're visual signals that tell the other participants that what's about to happen is play and not assault. And is that okay with everyone?

  If everyone agrees, then they can play.

  I say it's a codebook and in many ways, the analogy remains sound because some dogs are better at decoding the contents of the message than others. While they may already have the codebook, understanding it takes a kind of cipher, right? Some practice, which is when those seasoned players who've been around the codebook a few times come in handy.

  We'll be coming back to them for some more cool stuff about play maintenance.

 For now, let's get back to why the world order doesn't collapse every time anyone wants to play.

  Meta-signals.

  They'll include things like bouncy gate or movement. You know the ones I mean, the goofy jumping up and doing rocking horse impressions?

  I mean, that's using up valuable energy and it's usually using it up in a very inefficient way, which just doesn't happen if this was a real battlefield manoeuvre.

  You won't just see this in play invitations either. You'll see it throughout the play. Exaggerated body slams with the head turned away and a big snarly face on the perpetrator,

  which brings us to another great meta-signal, the play face. Look snarly and growly, even vicious, but if anything, the severity of the expression and the movement is the tip off that all is well.

  I mean, what else do we get? Oh, yeah, play bows, right? The one most people will be able to recognize. It's used to start play, but also as a reminder during play that this is just fun and it might be used if players slow down and the messenger would like it to start up again.

  And all meta-signals you'll see throughout play for that very purpose.

  Pore raises, that's another one, lifting the front pour up, potentially unbalancing yourself.

  Pause is in play. They're great indicators. The player's going in the right direction.

 That's a bit like them saying, "Few, hang on, a mo, I'm just getting my breath back. Okay, right, let's go again."

  Roll reversals, they're good ones and usually easy to spot.

  Notice when your dog might chase for a while and then when their playmate will swap for being chased to doing the chasing. The same goes for wrestling, one on top and the other one takes over.

  You see, it's all starting to make sense, or at least I hope it is. But I said I would come back to the management of play by skilled dogs. Next time you're out on your walk and you meet those regular playmates for your dog, check out what happens if there's a mismatch in either size or playing style.

 Check out for big dogs playing with small dogs or a normally robust player mixing it up with a more dainty participant.

  If the more robust or bigger dog is a skilled player, they'll more likely than not show some self-handicapping.

  That's when they modify their own normally robust style to accommodate their playmate. It's really sweet when you see it, so keep an eye out.

 Murphy O'Dog, our much-loved and much-missed Rottweiler, would do this with Ripley when she was a puppy. He would lay on the floor and she would come bounding up to him. She'd stick her head in his mouth. He'd be snarling and growling but would never close it. And he would modify all of his behaviour. He'd roll on his back and behave like she was getting the better of him and gently push her with his paws.

  But it never got out of hand. He always managed it supremely well, even though she was biting his ears.

  Finally, let's talk about what you can do if you're worried about the play that you're seeing.

  Perhaps you think it's too rough or going on for too long, or you're unclear whether all of the dogs involved are entirely comfortable with the way things are going. This is all possible.  Inexperienced players may get a little carried away, and it can end in squabbles and upset if there isn't some measure applied.

 But there's good news here. There's no harm in interrupting play frequently if you're concerned or even if you're pretty confident that everyone's up for it, but you just want to check.

  You can effectively cause the pause until the participants learn to regulate their own play in that way.

  Just as importantly, and perhaps more so actually, you can do something called a consent test.

  If you think that one dog in the pair is struggling and would like it to stop now, please, thank you very much. A consent test is when you gently take the perpetrator or the most robust, rigorous player out of the play. It gives them time to calm down, but it also helps you to decide if the play can continue.

 If the Vic or the dog who has been mostly on the bottom of the wrestles or being intently chased still wants to play with the same playmate, they'll come forward and attempt to re-initiate play.

  In this case, you can let them back at it. If the Vic doesn't want to continue, they'll not seek to restart the play, in which case you can either rest the both of them or find them a more appropriate playmate.

 Now that's my Bijou introduction to play. I hope you found it interesting. If you have any subjects that you would like us to cover on the Social for Dog podcast, let us know either in the comments or on our X Twitter account or by email to simon at socialfordog.com.

 See you next time.