Playing tug - Page 1

I am posting this for a friend to get some different opinions. He is planning on doing SchH with this pup. Thanks... "We have a 7 year old girl and a 5 year old boy. My daughter really loves her puppy (Apollo) a lot and my son doesn’t get as involved with the puppy he is a little timid around him. My daughter plays with the puppy and some times he ends up putting teeth marks or little holes in her sweaters or jackets when she is playing with him. I usually have to tell him in a stern voice to let go of her sweater or jacket because my daughter voice is not firm enough. He is by no means aggressive with her it is all in play but my concern is how will her discern playing tug of war with a toy and my daughter’s clothing. Especially when now at 5 months old he almost weighs as much as she does (45 lbs). Is tug of war a game we should be playing or not when we have small kids in the house? What’s your opinion?"

It is certainly possible and preferable for the pup to learn what is an appropriate tug toy and what is not. I would have plenty of toys for him including tug toys and these would be the only things that he hould be allowed to chew and tug. Be careful too with letting the kids rough house with the pup. When my pup was that age we were wrestling and she managed to latch onto my ear. OUCH! Thought I wasn't going to get it back.

You do not want to inhibit the puppy's drive, but you want to redirect the drive to a more appropriate object. When he latches on to something like clothing or flesh, give him a verbal correction so he understands that this behavior is not acceptable. Don't yell at him, but be consistent with the word you use, so he associates this word with doing something wrong. Immediately give him a tug or some other toy. I find it helpful to have the tug or tennis ball on a 3-4 ft rope, so it's active, stimulates prey drive and captures the puppy's interest more than hands and clothing. If you're going to do Schutzhund, you can play tug or war. Everyone always says the puppy should win. That's true to build his confidence, but he needs to also learn that it's your tug, not his. So when you want to stop the game, he must learn to release it immediately. You might seek out some experienced trainers to help you out.

There is no simple answer. It really depends on how serious about schutzhund you are. You could substitute something else for the pup to bite, but quite honestly I wouldn't have the pup biting on the child and would really limit there contact at present. If this dog isn't done teething I wouldn't be playing tug at all, especially if schutzhund is in the future.

Hi GSDfan, i can agree with everything said above. At the moment i have 4 pups at the age of 7 weeks. As you can imagine, their litlle teeth are sharp and they like to use them ! My son, 11 years, loves to play with them, but gave up pretty quick because they were chewing on him from every corner ! What i do, when they start showing this behavior is to verbally correct them. Now 1 pup is impressed with this correction, the others need a little more attention. So if they do not stop biting in my arm or hand, i softly push them away + verbal correction. After a correction i always try to offer something that is more suitible for chewing, like a towl for tug, a ball. Since kids are sometimes more active in their movements and that in return gets the pups going, i found it very helpfull to get the pups around kids as much as possible. Only if they get exposed to it and misbehave you have a chance to correct it. I often invite kids out of the neighborhood to help me feed the pups or to play with them, matter of fact even in that age, they start to show a more polite behavior towards kids. Still i do not think that your dog will harm your daughter, but keep in mind, your pup is growing and might still not be able to control the strenght of his bite. Sit with both of them and play, if it gets rough correct him. He will pick up, i bet, plus your daughter will learn how to stop him herself. Good luck with your pup. Kind Regards Ulli Dresbach

One other thing is pick up tugs/rags/balls when you are not playing directly with the dog. Leave other toys like stuffed animals out. The tug/ball/rag games should be special & only come from you & not from the kids. This way the dog learns the most fun of all is to be had inneracting with you. May also help if you don't let the kids get her all riled yup. Just gentle playing with the kids. I also agree with the poster who mentioned teething. Finally, if you are not experienced with schutzhund I think it would be a really good idea to find a club NOW. This way someone with experience who can also see the puppy will be able to give you assistance. Good luck & remember.....HAVE FUN!

What's a nice way to say this.... I make sure my new pup gets socialized with children but too much as unsupervised interaction can make training much harder. Anytime a pup is chewing or tugging on something not appropiate I will stop them by taking the object from them, firmly but gently with no correction. They get to play with what I give them and/or when I play tug. Realize I have high drive working lines and they are not handler sensitive.

Ranger, I don't understand the caution. It sounds like you train schutzhund dogs rather than having a family pet that you take to schutzhund training. If you correct a young dog for biting it will complicate your protection work later. That's just fact.

he's not correcting the young dog, he's just taking the inappropriate object and trading it for the right one, no correction involved.

I understood, perfectly well, what he said. Apparently I did not express myself clearly. As I stated, I did not understand why he was cautious in stating it, ei. "What's a nice way to state this...". I will attempt to post, in the future, so that I may be clear to everyone. Please pardon my lack of clarity.