Pia Silvani's, Director of Behavior and Training at St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center in New Jersey, gave a talk at APDT that focused on play between adult dogs, and it was a fantastic presentation. The best part of the talk was her videos of dogs playing--both appropriately and inappropriately. My absolute favorite was a video of two Tervurens meeting, greeting and eventually playing together beautifully. It was a like watching two strangers meet each other, and end up dancing as if they were on Dancing with the Stars. Several things stood out in the video that are, I think, important aspects of healthy dog play. First of all, the dogs were able to meet each other one on one, without other dogs around. So often it seems that dogs get introduced into a 'pack' and are overwhelmed by 3 Read More
Play and the “50/50” Rule
Camille Ward and Barbara Smuts gave a fascinating talk at the APDT Play Symposium on "Play and the Development of Social Relationships in Litters of Domestic Dogs." Their research (and that of their colleague, Erika Bauer) has focused on play in the domestic dog. They discussed two issues related to play in both puppies and adult dogs: 50/50 Rule: Years ago a scientist hypothesized that, for play fighting to work, the participants would have to switch roles about 50 % of the time. In other words, related to dogs, half the time one pup should be on top in the "assertive position," and the other pup should be on top the rest of the time. As Camille explained to us, this speculation, as often happens in science and other fields, slowly turned into "fact" (without the benefit of any actual Read More
Play and Self Handicapping
Apologies for not writing sooner, but I've just come out of one of those "work tunnels" that we all experience from time to time. What a joy to have come up for air and work Willie on sheep, rub Lassie's creamy soft belly and go on a bike ride with Jim. But, there's so much to tell you about the Association of Pet Dog Trainers Conference last week in Kentucky. I was only able to attend for two days, because I had to get back to give another speech on Sunday. I know I missed some great talks the last days at APDT, but I want to tell you about some of the great information that was presented at the Symposium on Play on Thursday. An entire day was devoted to the topic of play, and it was a joy to be able to go into a topic in depth. (Truth in Lending: I'm not objective about this at all. Read More
More on Play
I thought you might be interested in two of the books I am using as references for my talks on play behavior. One is Animal Play: Evolutionary, Comparative and Ecological Perspectives, by Marc Bekoff and John Byers. It's not new, (1998) but it is considered a classic in the field. Bekoff has done a lot of work on play in canids (and also on animal welfare). Byers has studied play as well, but is most well known for his lifetime of work on Pronghorn antelope (who he describes physically as "a sausage with toothpicks stuck in it for legs.") (I might not have the quote exactly right, but it's close!) Another valuable book is Play and Exploration in Children and Animals by Thomas G. Power (2000). It's comparative perspective is fascinating. Neither of these books are beach reading: they are Read More
The mystery of play
I'm deep in "speech preparation" tunnel, working sun up to sun down on my presentations about play at APDT next week. It's a lot of work, but gratifying. Play is such an interesting topic, I wish I could spend a few months doing nothing but learning, thinking and writing about it. One of the most interesting things about play is its reason for being is a bit of a mystery. Why do animals play? The answer seems like it should be obvious, but the more you think about it, the less you know. Is it for 'practice?' That makes sense, since play is seen mostly in young animals who are physically developing. However, some of the research suggests that practice is not the primary force driving play... (in some studies animals kept from playing are equally adept at predation and fighting.) Another Read More