You're listening to Pack Life,and this is your host Meli. If you're interested in a bigger, better, more fulfilling life for you and your companion animals, then you're in the right place. Let's go!
Hello everybody today on Pack Life,we are talking about one of my favorite topics, playing with your dog. When I first got a dog I had no idea that there was so much behind this topic.
It is one of the best ways to bond with your dog. It's one of the best ways to gain the respect and trust of your dog. It is one of the best ways to help your dog fulfill drives that they have, which in turn helps with behaviors and decreases frustration.
So there are endless benefits to learning to play with your dog, and endless benefits for you as a human to step away from your busy life and get a little more joy in your day to day.
I had huge paradigm shifts when I started learning about play from people who knew much more than I did and I want to share some of that with you today. When I started working with dogs, I quickly realized that all dogs are different.Those of you who grew up with dogs have known this from the time you were little, but for me, it was a new concept that play styles are unique and play styles are very different.
I often get pet parents coming to our training facility saying, “Hey, my dog doesn't fetch. Can you teach my dog to fetch?” Or “can you teach my dog to do X,Y or Z game that I would like them to play?” What I think works a lot better is saying,what does my dog actually like already, uninfluenced by me? Can I make a game out of that? Your dog is much more likely to be interested in the game if you are following their lead. And I think it's more fun for us as well, because when you see your dog light up, there's a dopamine hit that happens for us versus watching your dog feel ho-hum about an activity you're trying to get them to engage in.
Today's show is going to be an overview of a lot of the concepts that I was introduced to early on that really changed how I play with dogs. In later episodes,we'll deep dive into these areas. My goal today is just expand the information that you have access to and the awareness you have about what's possible in play. Later we'll do a lot more practical,deep dives about how to use these things to change the way you engage with your dog. All the content I'm going to share today is stuff that I learned from some really great people. I find these three people so incredible that I think they deserve their own spotlight for the body of work that they do. At the end of the show,I'll give a shout out to my main sources and inspirations for a lot of this content ,as well as link them in the show notes.
The first big paradigm shift for me came from understanding that play mimics behaviors that are going to help to support dogs survival later in life. Meaning it's how they practice behaviors that are going to help them to do things like hunt when they get older. What I find really interesting is that many species will play when they're in the younger and juvenile stages, but then when they reach full adulthood, they stop playing. There are other species that play throughout their whole lives. I think that this is one of the reasons that dogs and humans get along so well, is we will continue playing even when we're older. Just because it's joyful and fun.
When I say it's behaviors that will help them to hunt, I am talking about skills that relate to the predatory cycle. This is a series of steps that include noticing there's something in the distance, stalking it, chasing it, biting it, killing it, dissecting it, and consuming it. And I'm sure I'm missing a couple. When dogs are playing, there are different parts of that cycle that they're going to find really interesting naturally. A lot of this has to do with breeding.
For Example, humans have selectively bred herding dogs to do the stalk and the chase portion, but not the kill bite, because then they would be destroying the animals that they are helping us herd. We've done this with lots of different breeds, and then we have mixed breeds, and then we have dogs from the street. So it's kind of a mixed bag, what your personal dog is going to enjoy from this cycle, but starting to pay attention to what they enjoy doing on their day to day will help. In later episodes,I will deep dive about each of these phases and how you can really tune to playing with that part of the cycle.
Jay Jack,who is one of my favorite humans who teach us about play and I'll reference him more later in the show, added a celebration piece to this cycle that lands between possessing something and dissecting it.We'll get into nitty-gritty details about that in a later show. For now, just know if you have a dog that gets something that they've been working hard for and they seem excited about it, you can lean in with them and celebrate with them. You can run around with them while they have it in their mouth.You can pretend you want it and let them show you how excited the are to have this toy. I am excited for future shows where I can deep dive into possession, but for now just don't be afraid of that moment, especially if your dog is chest out, tail wagging, and running around. That's a really awesome time to celebrate with them.
That was an intro to the predatory cycle and what I want to segue into now is the different types of games that you can play with dogs and that they can fit into these two large categories of competitive versus cooperative games.So a competitive game would be something like tug. Me versus you. A cooperative game would be something more like fetch. Me and you working together. I throw it, you bring it back and we are working together as a team to complete this circle of throw and retrieve. Some dogs really like cooperative games and some dogs naturally crave a little more competition or conflict in their life.You can see this in humans too.There are some humans that love to debate and they think it's fun to engage in conflict. And then there are humans who really shy away from it and debating is probably one of their worst nightmares.Like public speaking.
So what impacts which your dog is into? And how do you figure out which of these two your dog likes the best. Maybe they have an even split of liking both. Several factors play into this. The first would be breed characteristics like we were talking about with the predatory cycle. What things are intact from that cycle and what things are not. The second is your individual dog. They're all individuals. So even among a breed group, you may have a dog that is a herding dog that really loves tug and doesn't want to chase anything. Totally fine. Totally okay.
The other thing that can influence this is the environment they grew up in and what do other animals and humans that they really care about find exciting? Because dogs can learn through observation and through copying what they see. And so sometimes you can get a dog into something without ever trying to make them like it just by pretending you really like it.Over and over. If you stand in the yard by yourself and focus on a toy and play with it by yourself, like you're having a great time. Often the dogs will be like, “well, what's, what's that? What are you doing over there?” And then whether the dogs around them play with it or humans,they can pick up on that behavior and start to find that item or that thing, or that game very valuable. What they really valued initially was your attention, and now you're doing it together. Even though this strategy can work, I wouldn't start there. I would start with seeing if you can match what your dog already loves instead of trying to convince them to love something that they are not naturally into by pretending you love it so much.
Okay. So we talked about predatory cycle. We talked about these two big categories that some games are competitive and some games are cooperative.The final thing I want to touch on is that for it to be a true game,It has to have a goal, rules, and penalties. A lot of times when I ask people what the goal of tug is I get interesting answers. People have said to me: “to bond with my dog”, “to get exercise”, “to run around together.” What I'm actually asking is for the goal in terms of the game itself. For tug the goal would be to try to get the thing that the other person or dog has and possess it. It's a possession game. I want this and you want this. We are both pulling at it and trying to see who's going to come out on top.
I think the reason this helps humans in terms of play is it changes how we approach play with dogs. When I see two dogs playing tug typically they are both trying to get a rope and one dog wins.That dog will typically run from the other dog and maybe showboat a little bit. The other dog is going to try to get it. Once they both have access again,the tug resumes.
Often when humans are playing tug with dogs they will pull back and forthor up and down shaking the toy vs trying to get it. If they win typically they'll toss it away. And that doesn't really make sense to the dog.If you were tugging now we're combining a competitive and a cooperative game. Dogs can eventually figure out any game with us, and they create unique games with their own families and other household dogs.So it doesn't mean that your dog won't learn how to play this way. But at first it's a little confusing.I t's going to take them longer to figure out what's going on versus if I get the tug toy and then pretend I want it. I can run away while holding it.That's going to really excite my dog, like, “oh my God, she's got it. I want to get it.”
Quick side note.If you have a dog that's dealing with aggression issues.Please reach out to a trainer for the best ways to play with this dog. It does not mean you can't play, but I don't want you to do something that you think is going to be really fun. And then it winds up exacerbating the situation. And it's nuanced when you're dealing with aggression,when you're dealing with bite history and when you're dealing with resource guarding. So please seek a professional to help you with that.
Once the dog and the human understand the rules and the goal of the game- now we can play and it's like a universal language. In a seminar I took with Ivan. who I’ll reference later, he talked about soccer. How you can take kids from different countries that don't speak the same language and put them all on a soccer field and if they know the game they can play. They can have instant bonding, instinct connection, without language.
So once we unlock games with dogs in a way that makes sense to the dog we really have a tool to bond and connect as a new person that gains us trust a lot faster than many other means.
Okay,so I said for it to be a game it has to have goals, rules and penalite.s Let's look at tug as an example. The goal would be possession. I want this rope.You want this rope. The rule is you can bite anywhere on the rope, but you can not bite my hand. The penalty is if you do bite my hand, the game is going to go dead for a little bit,and then we're going to play again. Having goals, rules, and penalties that makes sense to you and to the dog really allows it to be a great game.
Another component that's important for it to be a great game is that you want it to feel pretty evenly matched.If you have a basketball game and there's one team who's really good, and another team who sucks and they're playing each other. It’s not going to be an exciting game. It's not that fun for the people on the court who are winning or for the people who are losing. And those games tend to drag on. What makes it a really addictive, exciting, and fun game is when you have a more evenly matched scenario.
So when you are playing with dogs, if it is a competitive game, like tug you want to make it a challenge for your dog. Sometimes your dog is going to win.Sometimes you're going to win. And you want to go all in on this game while you're playing. What I mean by that is you are actually trying to pretend you're a dog and get that thing with them. It is going to make a big difference in how your dog receives the play session.and the amount of benefit that both you and your dog are going to get from it.
I think that's as much time as I have in this show to go through this, but we will deep dive in the future. I will later have resources where I'm posting videos and stuff to make some of this visual, because talking about play and seeing play are two totally different things.
One more time to echo: If you have a dog that has a bite history, is dealing with aggression or is dealing with resource guarding, please seek out a trainer. Find some professional help to teach you how to play safely with that dog before trying to put any of this into practice.
For all dogs, what you can start doing right now is paying attention to the way your dog plays, to when you're trying to get them to do something you want them to do that they're not that into, and for some things that you didn’t realize before may have potential to be a game.
An example is what I call “the claw”. There are some dogs that the most fun part of possession games is knowing that a human wants it and can't get it. So instead of an actual tug game where I'm grabbing the rope, I might stand in one place in the yard and just look at the toy that's in their mouth and pretend with two claws I am going to try to get it. Even from 10 feet away, I’ll do a quick step toward them as if I'm going to try to make a move for it. If your dog likes this they will run happily and tease you with it and continue looking at you with the toy in their mouth. They don't need you to touch the toy ever. In this case, the human is barely even moving and the dog is running around the yard, knowing that you want what they have and you cannot have it.
There are other dogs who don't care about toys at all and really love personal play. Personal play is playing with your physical body and the dog's physical body. As an example, tapping your dogs body like “I got you” and then running away while they chase you. My dog and I have a personal play game where I'll have him hold in a sit or just stand still while I walk away. And then I'll say break,and then he'll chase me and I'll run in a lot of different directions and he's trying to catch me. And then when he catches me, we celebrate together and it's the silliest game, but it is really just the best.
Okay. So it's time to shout out and introduce you to some of the amazing people that have influenced my journey into play. I hope you enjoy hearing about them as much as I enjoyed meeting them and learning from them.
The first company I'd like to talk about is Dogs Playing for Life. Amy Sadler is the founder of this organization and what they do is go into shelter environments and places where dogs are in enclosures all day waiting to find a new home and typically not getting enough activity. Typically what happens is while the dogs are in these environments there's not enough people and resources to get them out to the extent that anyone who's working with them day to day would like to see.
Quick sidebar: just to shout out anyone listening to this that works in a shelter environment. Thank you for what you do.It takes grit and it takes a lot of heart and a sincere love of dogs. You are amazing. If you have friends that do this, give them extra hugs. They're amazing.
Okay so back to how dogs playing for life is helping dogs in shelters When dogs are in this environment, typically they are not showing their best colors. Often because they're scared they're in a new place. It's loud, there is lots of new stimulus to deal with and then they don't have enough energy outlets, mental stimulation, or any socialization. It's really hard to get a read on who this dog actually is in terms of rehoming them and whether or not they're okay to play with other dogs or enjoy engaging with other dogs.
I know even my personal dog,who is fine with being around dogs and went to dog parks for much of his life would likely bark at other dogs and other people just because he'd be scared. So Dogs Playing for Life teaches teams that work in these environments how to get dogs to socialize and get them out in a yard together. What that means is multiple dogs get to go out at one time.T hey're meeting social, emotional, mental and physical needs in a very different way than they were before. And they get to go out more times a day typically than they would if they required one human at a time to go in and take one individual dog for a walk.
Now this work is risky for sure, because you don't know what you're going to get. And it is brave work. This company has pioneered so much that I have seen with playgroups and how to give dogs a chance at socializing. So big shout out to Amy Sadler and Dogs Playing for Life. If you have the ability to support this company, please do.
It's through Dogs Playing for Life that I attended a seminar where they hosted Ivan Balabanov. He's very famous in the dog world for working with Malinois and getting amazing results in bite sports and MANY other things. But for me as a pet parent, what was the most striking thing about him was how he played with the dogs. It's like watching a human become a dog while playing. So it was fascinating. And then to realize that these big, tough dogs that he works with that go out and compete by running and chasing down decoys and biting them. That he trained all of these amazing dogs doing real intense stuff with the foundation of play.
Prior to his seminar. I knew I could train dogs with food and by using toys that they were interested in. But I did not realize I was totally missing the play component and the bonding that happens through play. How that translates to better communication overall and better quality in your training. So he was a huge influence in the way I interact and play with dogs today. Also my business partner, Rebecca, just finished his really intensive in-depth training without conflict certification. So shout outs to Rebecca. For any dog trainers who are listening, This is an incredible certification and she's already bringing back such great information to our team so I highly recommend it.
The last person I'm going to reference in this podcast is Jay Jack. And I love Jay Jack so much that our company brought him to Miami to do a live seminar with us about play. Jay Jack has a lot of background in working with bully breeds, which are often some of the dogs that our clients have the toughest time trying to fulfill their needs. And Jay has created a whole dog sport called GRC dog sports that is friendly to any breed, but really focuses on the kinds of activities that dogs who like a little more competition in their life are going to go for and it's going to fulfill them.
Clearly I am a raving fan of all three of these people and you should definitely check them out. Links to all their stuff will be in the show notes.
Okay, so this has been a lot. I am really excited for future shows about this.I nerd out on this stuff and you can probably tell how excited I am talking about play. In the meantime, if you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out. If you liked the show, please subscribe and Leave me a review. It goes such a long way when you're starting a podcast.Thank you for your time and attention,I consider that your most valuable resource and I'm grateful that you would spend it listening to this show.I hope you have a great day and include some fun playing with your dog.