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 of play can improve the quality of life of many dogs (and their humans too!), 4) play has a positive effect on emotions (there’s some great research on this, see “Affective Neuroscience: the Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions” by Jaak Panskepp and 5) being able to play with their dog as a ‘treatment’ can increase client compliance. This last point I think is especially important. As Karen noted, so many of us see people who are deeply ashamed of their dogs, and who are nervous and afraid of their dog’s behavior. Creating a scenario in which they can channel both their dog’s and their OWN energy toward play gives them a chance to feel happy when they are with their dog–which is, after all, why most of us have dogs in the first place!
Speaking of happy, here’s a happy story! The photo below is a dog who came to the Humane Animal Welfare Society in Waukesha, WI and ended up, for a few hours, at my farm last Saturday. Khris Erickson, the Director of Behavior at HAWS, had suggested that he might be a great therapy dog for a friend of mine. She declined, but I fell in love with “Fluffballs” face, and hoped he might make a good play mate for Willie. (Okay, yes, I am talking about getting a pet for my dog. Will has his own chiropractor, his own chinese medicine vet (well, they are shared with Lassie) and now I’m looking for a dog for him to play with. I know, I know. . .) Truth is, I don’t really want another dog right now, and Will plays at least once a day with Lassie, but it is SO good for him to run run run run with other dogs. He gets to on ocassion, but I know it would be good for him to do so on a daily basis…
And so, Fluffball came to the farm to see if he’d be a good playmate for Will (and me too, I’ll admit…), and proceeded to ignore Will and ignore Lassie and walk on perfect heel, off leash in a distracting woody and pasture environment, beside Khris and I. This dog wanted people people people, he had little interest in other dogs, but was exceptionally sweet and biddable around anything with two legs. I’m thrilled to say that’s just what he got. Andrea, aka “The Book Queen” here at the office, was looking for a dog for her dear mum, and the rest is history. Mum and “Charlie Murphy” are now cuddling together every night, cozy as cozy can be.
Life is good.
Sang says
This area of discussion is such a great topic. The idea of using play to treat behavior issues, including aggression, is something I totally agree with. I’ve been working with my own “aggressive” terrier mix with a trainer by the name of Kevin Behan. I don’t know if you know of Kevin, Patricia, but he has quite a reputation in the New England area. Anyway, I live in Seattle, and he lives in Vermont, and he’s given me a lot of great advice. A big part of the treatment he prescribed for Roxy, was to teach her to play with me. To REALLY play with me. Whether it be with her tennis ball, or a good hard game of tug with a tug toy or rope. The goal being that I could use those activities to rechannel and redirect her emotional energy and charge in times of high stimulation, since we would be playing at a highly stimulated level, thereby allowing her to channel all the prey and play drive into me when she would encounter a situation, namely another dog, that would cause her to go into her aggressive state.
Now, Roxy isn’t totally cured of her dog aggression, which stems from her fear of being attacked by other dogs as she was attacked by an off leash dog once while on a walk. In fact, I hesitate to call it aggression as it’s more of an emotional overload which comes out sounding like aggression. But since I’ve been playing with her and helping her change her emotional state from one of fear and anxiety when seeing another dog, to one of a highly charged positive state, I can now get her to refocus her attention on me and channel all the intense energy into either her tennis ball, or a good game of tug.
My point is that accessing a dog’s energy through intense play gives you much more control over that dog’s ability to cope with their emotions, because it really gets those endorphins flowing. And because play FEELS so good to them, the more you engage in it with them at a high level and in the proper form, the more they’ll look to you for guidance, because you become the source of all those great emotions. And using play activities allows your dog to release those pent up emotions rather than suppress them, which makes for a happier, calmer dog overall.
So those are my thoughts on the subject. I’m no behaviorist or trainer. Just someone with one crazy dog, trying my best to help her:)
Beth Stewart says
I’m interested in learning more about this approach. I live in Juneau,Alaska, and in August I took in an 18 month old newfie. I’ve had two other newfs, and they were the classic gentle giants. Beamish was an at large pup in a remote Canadian community (where a friend is building a cabin). He was neutered on June 23d when my friend took him into Whitehorse for his health certificate.
Beamer is not a gentle giant. And his social skills leave a lot of room for improvement. He is food aggressive with other dogs but not with people. Bailey (my old border collie) and he have worked things out, and now enjoy each other’s company, but Beamer still chases one of my cats. He also bit a neighbor’s dog.
Life with him is not all bad. He is a quick learner, and with the help of a gentle leader we take good walks together. He has his own charms, and I’m committed to providing him with a full and safe (for everyone) life.
Play therapy may be part of the mix. Can you point me in the direction of any good literature on this subject?
Thanks,
Beth
trisha says
Great comments Sang; especially your point that play generates positive emotions that can replace negative ones. (I’m using ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ in the sense that they are good for the dog in the context in which they occur… I don’t think emotions are either; fear, after all, is useful at the right time).
And Beth: here are two books that might help (one is mine, sorry, it’s just the one I know about!) Look at Play Together, Stay Together, by Karen London and myself, and Pat Miller’s Play With Your Dog. Both can give you some ideas, although neither are specifically written about using play to treat behavioral problems. You might also want to get the DVD of Karen London’s seminar on play (dogwise.com). In it she shows several case studies in which she used play to solve a behavioral problem. Good luck!
Pam H says
Question- I already use play a LOT with my sometimes reactive bc. I’ve got a debate going on between some behavioral consultants I know whether or not engaging my dog in play when he’s interested in chasing a car is a good thing. Some folks think that a quick game of tug is just ‘upping the anty” by getting my bc even more “pumped up” while others see it as an incompatible behavior. So do you recommend playing tug with my dog to distract him from the deer running down the road?
Great topic- I can’t wait to read the book!
Shirley says
Interesting topic! It reminds me of an incident years ago when I was showing my young male schipperke in the breed ring. He’d won his class, and we were in Winners. I didn’t notice at first that a Dalmatian was staring at my schip from outside the ring. But Willow noticed, and said “I don’t think so!” to the Dal. I tossed his rabbit-fur rat. He caught it, shook it furiously, gave me an “I feel so much better” look, and resumed his show stack. And yes, we got Winners Dog for a major!
I’m looking forward to hearing and reading more about using play to treat aggression. I love your website!
Julie says
LOL, I read this as getting to play with the other dogs, not with the owner! Just today we worked with a young shelter dog, border collie and probably pit bull mixed. After we showed the owner how to click and treat for redirecting from the daycare dogs on the other side of the gate, and got the guy on the gentle leader, he calmed dramatically and got to go into daycare. It was so very clear that his “agression” is ignorance of dog social skills. The owner was thrilled to see him learning to play. I’m very lucky that we have the trustworthy daycare dogs to help educate the other guys.
And yes, play with the owner is important as well. I have a crazy Pyrenean Shepherd and playing with me is what keeps him focused. Wish I could convince more people to teach “tug”.
Lynne Eubanks says
A friend has a “sometimes aggressive” 2 year old blue heeler. At the dog park the dog is only aggressive to certain dogs, not a certain breed or size just random. Most of the time she is fine but once in a while she will go after another dog. He has already made the decision to rehome her but I would welcome some feed back just for my own information in case the rehoming does not work.