The last great talk in the Play Symposium at APDT was a wonderful presentation by Karen B. London. She begin with the belief that play is under-utilized as a reinforcement and tool to treat aggression-related problems in dogs. Several types of behavioral problems were listed as being amendable to using play, including over-arousal, frustration-related aggression, the fear of strangers and reactivity to other dogs. Dr. London reminded us that play is so useful because it 1) is a high energy exercise that can motivate dogs and channel their energy in positive ways, 2) play is a skill if you think about it, and it can be used to teach incompatible behavior (go get your ball instead of barking at the stranger) and also can be used to help dogs learn emotional control, 3) an increased amount Read More
Play Between People and Dogs
Two more posts about play from presentations at APDT: this one about play between people and dogs, and a post coming on Friday regarding Karen London's presentation on using play to treat aggression-related behavior problems. I spoke in the afternoon about play between people and dogs. It's a rich topic, with many nuances and complexities, and I only I had 45 minutes to address it, so I focused primarily on two issues: the importance of clear signals and the importance of pausing to allow emotional arousal to keep from overwhelmed our dogs. CLEAR SIGNALS: Play bows in dogs are truly unique; there is no other species that I could find that had quite as clear a signal that means "Hey! I want to play, and everything I do next is meant playfully!" (Also see my post on Oct 21st.) In relation 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
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