Rough play

[pilates]

Does your dog do this? It’s definitely playing but he does the low growling and mouthing. Is this ok or not? He plays with one particular dog and he does the same to him. They are equal as in one is not more dominant than the other. He is coming up to three if that makes a difference.

Oh yes Mine is three.

We call it bitey face. Some dogs love it, others don't, so it's important to be able to call him away if necessary :)

His favourite dogs to play it with are a husky, a cairn terrier, a cocker spaniel and an Irish Setter. Put them all together and it sounds horrific!

Totally normal dog behaviour.

Ok, yes I do keep a close eye and if they don’t look like they are enjoying it I would put him on lead. It looks like he is biting when I know he is mouthing. Isn’t that how they play when they are puppies with their litter?

Yes but it's a totally normal part of play for lots of dogs - if you watch you'll notice different dog's have different play styles.

As long as he self-limits and doesn't get too pushy it's fine

Completely normal - I love watching them play around like that.

Some things to watch out for are

• play being equal e.g. sometimes one will be on top of the other, and sometimes the other way around (good)
• breaks in play, where they'll each sit down for a minute, have a breather than resume (good)
• dogs play bowing at each other (good)
• one dog having more desire to play than the other - e.g. if one is walking away and looking disinterested while the other once keeps nagging (not good, time to walk away with your dog)
• one dog taking things a bit far (e.g. playbites a bit hard), the other dog telling them off and setting boundaries, pause in play, and then them making up again (par for the course, it's how they learn, leave them to it)

It is incredibly rare for two dogs to go from well-matched playfighting together to actually fighting and having a bit of scrap.

You may like to watch some YouTube videos on canine body language - it's fascinating when you get into it.

@cupsofcoffee

Oh yes Mine is three.

We call it bitey face. Some dogs love it, others don't, so it's important to be able to call him away if necessary :)

His favourite dogs to play it with are a husky, a cairn terrier, a cocker spaniel and an Irish Setter. Put them all together and it sounds horrific!

Do you have a whippet or sighthound? Biteyface is a whippet specialty

Our lurcher loves to roughhouse, he is 9 months and for those dogs who enjoy playing with him it does sound completely horrific! His two best buddies are golden retrievers, both like to lie down with him and roll around biting faces, clashing teeth and making all sorts of ridiculous noises. Then they all break off, have a good shake, wee/sniff, then start again. It lasts hours if left to it!
He doesn’t play nicely with nervous dogs, he is too boisterous, so we pop him on a lead around those we know aren’t fans, although he is getting better at a polite sniff and move on. Heaven help any dog that play bows at him!

Two of my collies actually put their heads inside each mouths with the snarly teeth face.

When dogs play together look for a rocking horse sort of movement if their bodies are loose and they tend to rock between one being on the floor in a head grip and then the other one is on the floor in the same position usually that means all is good.

Another way to check is to hold one of the dogs and see what the other dogs does. If it stays around then it is more than happy to carry on playing, if it wanders off time for you to stop the game.

@pilates dominance as a theory has been debunked.
You want to see two wolfhounds playing bitey face. That looks FIERCE!

@bluetongue nope, I have a beagle

He LOVES bitey face - it's very common from what I understand so it may be a hound thing?!

I have beagles. The biteyface is endless and very very loud.

Yep with siblings and one particular friendly lab.