How To Teach Your Dog to Play Nicely

Are you worried that your dog is playing too rough?

A client recently sent me some video footage of her dog playing with another dog. She thought it looked too aggressive and rough but wasn’t sure what to do about it. 

To help her out, I slowed down the video and added some annotations so she could see where I thought things were getting too rough.

Watch the video so you can start learning how to assess dog play because understanding play will help to keep your dog safe. 

Throughout dog play sessions, you should regularly call your dog to you and ask them to do easy commands like “sit” and “watch”.  This will give your dog a chance to rest, reset and to refocus on you while you’re at the dog park. 

Sometimes dogs don’t know when to stop. 

When they get tired or when the other dog ignores their body language cues signalling they’d like a break, that’s when things can get nasty and you may find yourself breaking up a dog fight. 

You should always supervise your dog’s play sessions closely and be ready to intervene with breaks for training and calming down.

Watch the video here:

For more puppy raising tactics, save your seat in my free masterclass

“3 Simple Tactics for Raising a Well-Behaved Dog”