Graham has been discussing dominance on his blog after I mentioned that we, too, wrestle with our dog!
When we first got Mollie, I was very worried about dominance and was all for making sure Mollie was always on the floor, not allowed on the furniture etc as a lot of people say that encouraging any kind of bossy or pseudo aggressive behaviour can cause your dog to become dominant and basically potentially dangerous. But then I read about wolves and watched that TV program where that bloke basically 'became' a wolf, and I thought, hey - among dog and wolf packs, the leader still plays with the others, and it's an integral part of the bonding process. So, Mollie gets occasional reminders about walking behind us when going upstairs, and she gets fed after the cats, and has to sit or lie down for treats etc, but we play with her as if we're dogs. To start with, she didn't know what to do - if you went down on all fours, growled and bounced her, she'd run away - but now she bounces back and plays properly!! Sometimes it looks and sounds for all the world like she's biting my hand off, but leaves nothing but a slightly damp patch - and she always stops when we stop. Ultimately, I guess it depends on the relationship you have with your dog and on your dog's character. We have to be on our guard as Mollie will occasionally push the boundaries a bit (she IS a terrier, after all!), but it's fairly easy to put her in her place ("BED!!" usually works!), and she was doing that when we first got her anyway. And a knock on effect of us playing with her like this is that she's much much happier playing with other dogs now!
Showing posts with label dog wrestling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog wrestling. Show all posts
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The landing game
Mollie, my partner Tracy and I have invented a game.
It's one of Mollie's favourites.
We keep the door through to the living room closed so that the cats can't go upstairs unless they're invited (the reason why is another story), and we have a laminate floor in the hall. Mollie likes to try to be first through the door when it's opened (from either side), so if going from the living room to the hall she does a kind of sideways cartoon scrabble on the laminate then runs up the stairs.
The game is for one of her humans to crawl up the stairs, bang both hands on the landing (dog pounce) and go 'hah!' or similar. This is Mollie's prompt to a) grab a toy/sock/slipper and b) run past taunting us with it. The landing runs across the top of the stairs, so she can run from the master bedroom to the bathroom shaking her 'toy' wildly... and whichever human is at the top of the stairs then has to try and grab the toy or the dog as she runs past... sometimes it ends up with a spot of dog-wrestling, either way it invariably leaves the (dark blue) landing carpet covered in white hair. Don't let anyone tell you that smooth-coated terriers don't moult, they definitely do!!
On a separate note, thank-you to Graham for his mention yesterday!! Mollie unfortunately took Prince's advances the wrong way and thought he was after her chew, which she promptly glued to the sheepskin rug in front of the fire. Does anyone else find their dogs do this? We have a huge fluffy beanbag in the living room and on more than one occasion we've found a partially masticated rawhide knot hanging from it... in fact, at the weekend she glued one to our bedsheet and it left little hard patches which I'm told were quite uncomfortable to sleep on... hehe, glad it wasn't on my side of the bed!!!
It's one of Mollie's favourites.
We keep the door through to the living room closed so that the cats can't go upstairs unless they're invited (the reason why is another story), and we have a laminate floor in the hall. Mollie likes to try to be first through the door when it's opened (from either side), so if going from the living room to the hall she does a kind of sideways cartoon scrabble on the laminate then runs up the stairs.
The game is for one of her humans to crawl up the stairs, bang both hands on the landing (dog pounce) and go 'hah!' or similar. This is Mollie's prompt to a) grab a toy/sock/slipper and b) run past taunting us with it. The landing runs across the top of the stairs, so she can run from the master bedroom to the bathroom shaking her 'toy' wildly... and whichever human is at the top of the stairs then has to try and grab the toy or the dog as she runs past... sometimes it ends up with a spot of dog-wrestling, either way it invariably leaves the (dark blue) landing carpet covered in white hair. Don't let anyone tell you that smooth-coated terriers don't moult, they definitely do!!
On a separate note, thank-you to Graham for his mention yesterday!! Mollie unfortunately took Prince's advances the wrong way and thought he was after her chew, which she promptly glued to the sheepskin rug in front of the fire. Does anyone else find their dogs do this? We have a huge fluffy beanbag in the living room and on more than one occasion we've found a partially masticated rawhide knot hanging from it... in fact, at the weekend she glued one to our bedsheet and it left little hard patches which I'm told were quite uncomfortable to sleep on... hehe, glad it wasn't on my side of the bed!!!
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