Is this normal play?

[Hee Yung Lee]

I was curious if anyone cold help me with this problem. When Bogart plays with other dog sometimes they play a little too rough for my liking, but maybe I am just not familiar with how dogs play. What some dogs do to Bogart is they grab his scruff (he has lots of wrinkles) and they will pull on it. They will also (if he's on the ground on his back) will grab the wrinkles around his neck and shake their head-to me this looks like they are pretending to kill him. :shock: Maybe not. What do you guys think? When this happens, I will call Bogart to me and try to distract him. Many times the other owner will call their dog off, but sometimes they don't and it kind of bothers me because they'll keep bugging my dog. I just feel bad because other dogs are always messing with his wrinkles. :wink: Poor guy. Is this appropriate play? Do your dogs actually bite down on another dog and pull? Thanks.

[Marsha]

There's a Boxer puppy at the ballpark that plays with my puppy when they're there together. My puppy does like to grab the jowls that hang down from the boxer. The boxer is bigger and stronger and gets away easily, but it doesn't seem to bother her. She doesn't yip. She just pulls away and grabs my puppy somewhere else or they wrestle each other until he grabs her again. Her little stubb is wagging and so is my puppy's tail. They both whine if we pull them apart. They're always on a leash there, so they're playing and getting tangled in the leashes, and we do periodically pull them apart, but it's because of the leashes getting tangled. They, so far, have done no growling....even play growling.

In puppy kindergarten class, my puppy would grab and pull on the skin around the face of a Beagle. The Beagle was several months older and about 3 times the size of my puppy. I was always trying to pull my puppy off, but the instructor said the Beagle was very patient with the smaller pups in the class and she would handle it if she had a problem. The owner of the Beagle said the same thing.....said there was another dog at home, and they played MUCH rougher than anything my puppy was doing.

Don't know if it helps, but it does seem that they like to grab the extra skin some of these dogs have. I did previously have a pug, and the only dog he played with was another pug. I never noticed them going for each other's wrinkles, and there were plenty of wrinkles to go for!!

[Andre Mendizabal]

I don't know how "normal" it is, but I can tell you my dog does the same thing with the husky, she will grab his fur from the scruff and just pull and shake her head, he doesn't seem to mind and just walks around with the "little thing" stucked in his fur... anyway, she only plays like that with him because they've known each other for long and they live together, they do play rough but not even growl, only play... so I guess sometimes dogs do like to play rough, they're animals anyway!!!! :P

[Eric Vecc]

How does Bogart react to the situation? Does he yelp or does he try and fight back? Bogart is a pretty big dog and I bet he has a pretty nasty bite. If it bothered him, he would probably try to...1) get away, 2) fight back or 3) not go near or play with dogs that are dominate over him. How does your dog get onto his back - does the other dog knock him over?
It does sound a little rougher than I would be comfortable with too. But when Bailey was smaller, he would go up to any dog and try to play. We had a larger lab over our house and he 'pawed' Bailey so hard it knocked him across the room. Bailey yelped and whimpered away - course he came back after 3 seconds for more action. I figure if it bothered him, he would stay away. It's like my cat...my dog plays rough with him so he just stays on higher ground.

[Luciann]

Well Tika will grab Frodo by the neck skin and pull on him and play and the just plays back...I don't think it hurts them if it does they will let them know but I just consider it like kids grabbing anothers shirt when they are playing.

I would not worry about it too much unless they break the skin, or Boggie acts like it hurts.

but that is just my opinion

[Justine Archuleta]

I would agree to keep Bogart away from other dogs when they do that to him if he yelps or snaps at them. My dog does that too when he is playing so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Hee Yung Lee]

Hey, thanks everyone for your stories! Bogart doesn't yelp (in fact he doesn't ever seem to yelp even when I have accidently stepped on his paws :?), but I have noticed that he will occasionally get up and run away. Of course he could be doing this to get the other dog to chase him because sometimes he comes running back to the dog so obviously he's not trying to get away.

I guess overall it doesn't bother him. He does play back but sometimes he just looks kind of scared (on his back, eyes kind of wide), but then again maybe it's just me overreacting because he doesn't get mad or snap at the dog. Oh, and to answer Eric's question, he gets on his back because the other dog knocks him over, or sometimes Bogart just seems to plop over like he's a 5 lb chihuahua. Dogs 1/4 of his weight have taken him down :roll: :D.

It's funny though because when he plays with other bulldogs, they don't do that to each other. And one time he was playing with this bullmastiff that also had lots of wrinkles. The owner of the bullmastiff and I were talking about that how they don't bite at each other's wrinkles but other dogs do. Maybe they secretly make a deal with each other..."listen, I won't mess with your wrinkles if you don't mess with mine..." :lol:

[Eric Vecc]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a dog is acting submissive when he goes onto his back during play. Now don't get me wrong - I think this is a good thing. I would think a dominate dog will cause many more problems than a submissive dog. The NILF program teaches a dog to be submissive to his/her owner and makes for a much more pleasant dog. Bailey does the same thing during play.