Can you 'playfight' with a dog if you have young DCs?

[ASecretLemonadeDrinker]

We got a lovely lovely 15 mo staff x jack russel x who knows the other day who is used to our age DCs. DH though (used to german shepherds etc.) has started to play fight with her - I have told him not too because it's not fair as she won't understand 'trying to get the ball' etc. is a game just for playing with adults, or is it OK to 'play' with dogs? I have always had dogs, but I was older than my DCs. DH has always had dogs but would be very playful with them - hiding and calling them so they find him and pretty much pounce on him when they find him etc., rolling around the garden that sort of thing. Any opinions?

You shouldn't encorage dogs to play fight with you - a dog should never lay its teeth on you even in play - they dont know the differnce that play fight is OK with adults but not with children .

Also if she is play fighting and tryong to get ball then if she sees children playing with a ball then it is fair game that she will think she could play fight with them to get ball and god kows what could happen.

So basically not a good idea.

My friend was warned against this and ignored all the advice anyway. End result was dog being put down 6 months later. (was an brittish bull terrier

It is absolutely fine for dogs to play fight with you, but I would make sure the dog only play fights if it is initiated by you/your husband/other person.

We often play fight with our dogs. They are allowed to 'bite' us (they know not to use any pressure) and my DH has great fun rolling about on the floor with them all, usually all four at once. The dogs get very excited and love it, but they will immediately stop when asked, no matter how excited they are.

They have never tried to initiate play fights themselves and they have certainly never tried to play fight with our children or mouthed the children.

I had advice from a dog trainer before we had our first baby and the advice was absolutely definitely no play-fighting as dog's teeth are too sharp and can harm even if by accident.

I'm with midori on this one. The thing to bear in mind is that you MUST be confident that you are in control. If you aren't or if your dogs haven't the command then play fighting is probably best avoided.

I play fight with my own 3 dogs often - 2 German Shepherds and a Lab cross but, as Midori said, they know when to stop, who to play with and who is in charge.

We play-fight with our lurcher. He loves it - and is extremely gentle. He usually just opens his mouth and mock-mouths our arms, and if he does make contact it is extremely gentle - he definitely knows the power of his bite and never puts any pressure on. I think this is OK as long as you remember the rules - we never do it if the dog initiates it, only if we do (to be fair, he very rarely tries to initiate it himself as he knows it won't get him anywhere) and we stop when we want to, so he knows we're in control. He always stops as soon as we tell him to. It's not something we let visitors do either as they wouldn't necessarily know how to control the fun in the right way.

Agree with Midori and Val, it is fine to play fight but you should initiate it, Dp has always play fought with our dogs and they have never gone too far and however excited they can always be stopped on command.

The children stick to throwing a ball.

I would always discourage any mouthing, even if it's gentle, because even if it never leads to 'proper' biting the dog doesn't necessarily understand when it's appropriate. I wouldn't want my dog 'mouthing' say a child or someone who was nervous of dogs.

Our Rottie did it to us sometimes when we first got him, it was an excited, playful thing, not aggressive, but it could hurt a bit, and I can see how someone might be alarmed by a dog of that breed in particular grabbing their arm in his jaws and giving a friendly squeeze :)

DP likes to play-fight/wrestle with him, which is fine, though I try to discourage it in the house due to things getting knocked over etc...

I would think the wrestling aspect might be what you need to worry about if your kids are small. I'm concerned because my husband likes to wrestle with the dog (whippet x Staffie, we think) and although teeth are never involved, the dog is like a rubber spring and has knocked over kids by accident before (also my sister, both in-laws and me while chasing tennis balls). I'm pregnant with first child and don't want dog being wound up to knock the baby over when it starts to move around - or to accidentally stand/jump on a baby. Left to himself, the dog is very careful and tolerant of kids, but when he gets excited he never looks where he's going.

We always used to playfight with the dog, but dont do it so much now we have the children. We still do tug of war, which is her favourite game. I remember when DS was younger he tried to grab the toy so that he could play TOW with her. She refused point blank to take the toy off him! DS was most disapointed!
(my dog is a staff)