puppy playdate question

Shauna

I just took my now almost 9 week old puppy to play with his sister (his actual sister from his litter). I've never had 2 puppies play together so I don't know what's normal and what's not.

Anyway, a few times they really started to fight. I'm assuming this is bad, right? And most of the time my boy kept trying to mount his sister! Most of the time they barked and growled at each other.

If these were older dogs I'd know they shouldn't be playing with each other, but being that they're puppies should this behavior just be let played out? I mean, are they learning? Or should they have just been "happy go lucky" puppies and playing with each other?

We want to keep getting these two puppies together for playdates, but I worry that as they get bigger their fights will get quite ugly.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

Luv2byte

They are at an age they are learning about their mouths & limits. Are you sure it was fighting or play fighting? My two will sound like hey are trying to kill each other but if you watch closely they are having a blast running, playing, wrestling and lots of growling. It is a multiple occurance DAILY to remove our 17mo eskie's fur from our 17week puppies mouth - they grab manes, ears, legs..you name it, they growl, rear up like deer and "box" each other, run, chase...its a blast to just sit back and watch them. They are simply being dogs having a good time & since we brought home our baby at 8weeks old neither dog has ever let out a yelp of pain.

If either puppy is hurt by too strong a bite from the other, they will yelp, this is how they learn their limits of strength and biting.

Criosphynx

no blood? One didn't run away and not come back? They reingage each other after you split them up? If so...Sounds like they were playing

they are going to make tons of noise, its all normal

Brittany

Memories Memories Memories.....LoL

My first 10 or 20 posts on this forum were me freaking out about my new dog and my old dog playing/fighting. I thought they were trying to kill each other LoL. Kelsey would bark and growl and they were wrestling. It had me really worried for about a month. I finally posted a video and everyone said they are only playing!! It really sounded like they were fighting.

Your puppy is still young so they are probably still learning how rough they can play. But I would say as long as they are staying engaged with each other neither is trying to run away scared (Kelsey runs away from Kimber all the time but Kimber chases her and they have a great time) and no one is bleeding they are fine.

Kimber my puppy has made Kelsey yelp maybe 2 times and he immediately stops what he was doing.

I think they are probably just playing and we humans are not used to it because they play like dogs not humans.

But if you have any doubts next time try and take a video and post it on here and everyone will let you know what they think. That is what it took to ease my mind and convince me they were just playing. So now they get to play a lot more since I am not panicking about it.

Shauna

Ok phew. I know growing up I had a lab and a husky who would play fight and if you didn't know the dogs you'd swear they were trying to kill each other! They'd be growling and wrestling and their teeth would be showing, but they were 2 of the most gentlest dogs and if we told them to stop they'd stop and look at us like "why? We're having fun!"

I guess I just need to get to know my pup a little more to see what his personality is and learn about his body language. I just don't want him fighting and I'm thinking he's playing and then he's becoming aggressive. You know?

Brittany

That makes perfect sense. How long have you had your pup? It takes a while to really know your dog and be able to understand him. It will be great having a steady doggie play date.

Criosphynx

lol..I forgot about that.



But yeah, if your not sure, a video will help

Mikey

play for an animal is doing things they need to know how to do (ie, fighting, running etc) when they dont' need to do it. Play is any normal activity, practiced outside of when it's needed.

For example, a killer whale will grab a seal, release it and hunt it-whereas they could have just eaten it-no need right? But that's play.

For rabbits they play by running jumping and hiding-as a prey animal-evasion of predators when no predators exist-is play.

Growling, pouncing, biting,chasing and running -for a predator is play. It's highly unlikely what your pup was doing was anything other then normal puppy play.

I agree-the biting and growling can sound scary. My dog sounds like a determined rottweiler at prey when he's playing-but he's just playing.

A video would be great-but I guarantee you-your pup is playing