PLAY: The natural interrupter

I’m going to do a couple of posts on playing to show what interruption looks like as in both these videos and next will be proper corrections.

In the first video we have Blaze (wirehaired pointing griffon) Barney ( border collie mix) and Lucy (pit bull mix and is muzzled in this video). Blaze is a neutral dog and a natural interrupter. Barney is my moms dog and very laid back with a touch of nervous/uneasy energy. Lucy is very confident but lacks social skills and it shows in her Play. She tries to take advantage of dogs with weaker energy and that is Barney in this case. I couldn’t figure out how to mute the video so I recommend playing on silent to just watch the dogs. In the video you will see Lucy become interested in Barney and start to follow then begin to amp up and start to body bump and rush under his legs I call these bully moves because it is pretty typical of the bully mixes to play in this style. It is totally inappropriate and can cause fights because if left unchecked it will build frustration in the other dog. Barney shows great patience and just tries to move away. Blaze sees what is going on and comes to interrupt Lucy. This is excellent play skills and is a great  example of a dog who is a natural interrupter. He succeeds in moving between them and gives a chance for Barney to move away but Lucy is too amped up and continues to follow him. Blaze moves with them and Barney ends up going into the porch area, I call him out as I don’t want him to get backed into a corner and feel the need to defend himself. He comes out and lucy continues to follow and once again goes under his legs. As they go up the hill Barney has finally had enough and gives one snap and Lucy accepts the correction and folllows him down the hill and Barney stands to be sniffed and begins to move off and the video ends.
The main take away from this video is how important it is to either have a neutral dog who is a natural interrupter or seeing when to interrupt play yourselves. As soon as Lucy starts to show a lot of interest in Barney that is when I would give a vibration on her e collar. It would be just enough to say slow down. If you wait till she starts to body bump or go under Barney’s legs then she would have amped up enough that the interruption of the e collar would not be as effective. Timing is everything. Using an e collar for a dog like lucy is an excellent way to take the owner out of the mix especially if they can get nervous and it is just enough "pressure" to say slow down or take it down a notch. I’m not using the e collar in this video because Blaze is such a perfect interrupter but if for some reason Blaze didn’t interrupt then I would have. This was the first time Lucy met Barney. She and Blaze had played together many times without the muzzle on and the vibration on her collar always helped her calm down and eventually we could call her off play and have her go to her place bed.

In the second video we have Blaze and Chloe both wirehaired pointing griffons. This is an excellent example of two dogs properly playing and both throw in spins and stops to interrupt play.   And when Chloe had enough and laid down blaze sniffed then just waited to see if play would resume. He walks off and eventually both get water.