Playing Rough

Clodagh

Playing chess with pigeons
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When young Labradors play it’s all pretty civilised, bitey face, yowly noises and a bit of dead fly with the odd zoomies.
The beagles play like little heathens, they draw blood sometimes. They sink their teeth into each other’s abdomens and genitals, drag each other around by lumps of flesh and yet are always making happy play noises.
If Scout joins in, and he plays ‘crush the beagle’ the one that isn’t being flattened tries to disembowel his brother.
Is this normal? Is it labs that are different?
 
My whippet cross and my terrier cross start of with bitey face but it can get a bit rougher so I step in as I don’t want any injuries , terrier is 2 and whippety thing is 5 months, I’m hoping they will calm down soon
 
My sighthounds and collie x GSD do all the noises and bitey face and are quite rough, nothing like what you're describing though. Never had any blood shed.
 
Apparently beagles are amongst the pack animals most likely to do serious harm to a kennel mate. Bassets are the most likely.
Whatever they will be like when back in with all their siblings. Or maybe it’s safety in numbers.
 
My German Shepherd has no friends because she’s just too rough. My JRT was up for a play in the beginning, but got flattened so now won’t entertain any play at all. She sometimes forgets herself and has a funny five minutes but as soon as the GS touches her she remembers and tells her off.
 
When young Labradors play it’s all pretty civilised, bitey face, yowly noises and a bit of dead fly with the odd zoomies.
The beagles play like little heathens, they draw blood sometimes. They sink their teeth into each other’s abdomens and genitals, drag each other around by lumps of flesh and yet are always making happy play noises.
If Scout joins in, and he plays ‘crush the beagle’ the one that isn’t being flattened tries to disembowel his brother.
Is this normal? Is it labs that are different?

Our Labs play more like your beagles! Tbf the 3 yr olds didn't but they had the Rottweiler to keep them in order:)

Favourite games here are Bitey Face and Norman Hunter(bites your legs off) interspersed with charging around and knocking into anyone who is in your way. Then there is Wrestling, 2 x falls a d a submission to win. There is a rule that we don't run round in the house, that is regularly broken.
The brown one is now confident enough to play with the adults. Brown and black were charging around with a coffee stick for a while this morning.
 
The Mannies are similarly violent, at 8 weeks old yes the have scars on their ears and often make each other scream. Crotch biting is a key part of play.

The springers can be just as tasmanian devil but it's banned from inside the house
 
German shepherds are rough, bargy and noisy but mine don't bite hard enough to draw blood. They do like biting each other on the back of the neck in wrestling type play but it is more grabbing of the scruff than anything else.
Some of the collies line up behind one another to grab the one in front by the tail or rear end and specialise in doing fly bys on one another but again, it is never particularly rough.
 
Apparently beagles are amongst the pack animals most likely to do serious harm to a kennel mate. Bassets are the most likely.
Whatever they will be like when back in with all their siblings. Or maybe it’s safety in numbers.
Fox Hound pups can also play 'ferociously' but in my experience very rare they will actually turn on each other......
 
German Shepherds are awful, noisy, rough and rude. It's why I walk all of mine separately and as a result am permanently exhausted, the youngest and middle one get on well but the female is so bloody bold, I'm only little and I don't have the strength to intervene and can't really afford massive vet bills if it escalates.
 
The lurchers were prone to make a grab at each other in full run resulting in triangular pieces of skin being torn off their sides unless muzzled and would terrify non lurcher potential play mates by goading them quite aggressively to make them run so they could be chased. A friend pleaded to bring her very dog friendly dog over for a play. I tried to warn her but she thought I was exaggerating and came anyway. The playdate ended swiftly with the removal of her very rattled dog who was wisely refusing to run.
 
The Rotters used to pull each other round by their ears but rarely caused injury, or hurt. They did sometimes get abscesses on their faces which we thought were caused by wounds, until we only had one and we realised the abscess was caused by ingrowing hair after a moult.
 
Pups playfight a lot, there’s lots of here, take this toy so I can then rugby tackle you for it and bite your leg or hide then leap at you. There’s lots of growling, but never any pained noises. Goose likes to chuck toys up and down whilst rearing around then has an attack of the zoomies.

They have a tug of war silent game in the house where one has a tennis ball and the other also holds it and tries to drag the other.

The noise can be concerning, but they stop when asked.
 
If the GSD gets to play with the greyhound, his whole head and neck disapear into her mouth. He is too creaky despite the improvement caused by librella, to cope with her pushing and shoving. When he runs, his type of play, she just gets over excited and worse and will knock him off his feet.

Because of this they never get to play outside together.
 
Our 3 and Daycare Dog haven't had much free time together over the last fortnight, as sister and I took ours to visit family in Scotland, the 1st week(while DD's owner looked after sheep and horses). Her owner took the 2nd week off work, we did meet to walk together and to all go out for lunch, in fact the 4 dogs travelled in the same car a few times but goodness me! Did we know about it yesterday!
The little ones wouldn't leave each other alone to the point where we had to enforce cage rest for a while before we went for a walk - and they weren't much better after we got back!
 
The corgi’s, even as adults, look and sound like they’re killing each other constantly - they also have zero pain threshold when being rough. I have to keep an eye as sometimes when one has had enough and tries to end things, a squabble can occur. Never had dogs as rough as them before.
 
Our 3 and Daycare Dog haven't had much free time together over the last fortnight, as sister and I took ours to visit family in Scotland, the 1st week(while DD's owner looked after sheep and horses). Her owner took the 2nd week off work, we did meet to walk together and to all go out for lunch, in fact the 4 dogs travelled in the same car a few times but goodness me! Did we know about it yesterday!
The little ones wouldn't leave each other alone to the point where we had to enforce cage rest for a while before we went for a walk - and they weren't much better after we got back!


However, I am delighted to report that they have been much quieter today and are now fast asleep, having returned from a walk.
 
GSD eats Border Terrier ?
Not really! These two got on brilliantly, despite the Border regularly putting her head in the GSDs mouth ?

View attachment 99314

Love this photo... but it is also why I can no longer let our boy play with anyone whos humans don't understand his intentions! Saves the speel of "he isn't actually going to eat you cockapoo" but by god does he look and sound like it!!
 
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