What is play?

I spent my weekend at a dog seminar, surrounded by humans who love, live, breathe dogs. It was awesome!

Sue Sternberg talked to us for 2 days about dog to dog aggression and dog park behavior. Not a coincidence. Sue is very entertaining, relying on video clips to support her theories. But the piece that I liked the most is that she continues to ask questions. She's been involved in the dog world for 25 - 30 years and is still asking questions. That makes sense to me. It doesn't matter how much or how little experience you have, you should always be asking questions.

Sue's latest question is: What is play?

Does that not seem obvious? Haven't we all figured that one out by now? Well, actually, I don't think we have. Sure, there are plenty of definitions:

engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose
amuse oneself by engaging in imaginative pretense
play, by definition, is fun. When play stops being fun it stops being play.

We could list definitions forever. But could we recognize play when we see it?

I remember as a kid, my uncle was the 'funnest' guy in the world. He played with all of us and everyone had fun. Except for me. He scared me. He played hard. He played on the edge. And I didn't like it. I was not having fun. So was it still play?

We take our dogs to the dog park so that they can play with other dogs. Are they all having fun? Is the dog who is being chased by 3 other dogs, really enjoying it? We need to read the body language.

And over time, do our dogs learn to tolerate 'play' and maybe even change who they are because we demand that they 'play'?

So many questions.

We adopted Charlie when he was 5 months old. One of our dogs had died a few weeks before and Floyd, our malamute really needed to live with another dog. (Red flag: should you really get a dog to keep your other dog company????) Things were great until Floyd was too old to go on walks. Looking back, this was a turning point; but at the time, I did not have a clue. Charlie and I would walk every day and he got worse and worse on the leash.

What does that mean? He lunged and barked at other dogs that we'd see along the way. It started with just one dog, then grew to most dogs. He was ok at the dog park as long as he chased his ball. Looking back, I think he missed Floyd's protection; his cues about how Charlie was supposed to act on leash. And I think Charlie didn't trust me to take care of him without Floyd.

So I got help. UnLeashed - an incredible training group, diagnosed what I thought of as aggression and helped me get Charlie back on track.

Basically, Charlie is a wimp and would be happy to never meet another dog ever again as long as he lives. But he has to walk and he does go to the dog park (maybe not for long...), so he needs some options. I've built a relationship with him so that he can focus on me rather than other dogs on the street. It's going very well.

But what is this all about? Why do we ask our dogs to meet strange dogs in the dog park and "play" with them? Would we ask that of our children? Of ourselves?

Why do we have dogs?