Play nice

[nyri]

When I take Kai to her puppy classes, I don't see a huge difference in how she plays with the other puppies compared to the other puppies there. She is of course in the rowdy puppy class, and if she were in the shy puppy class, there would be a huge difference... she basically jumps on the other puppies, or crawls under their faces, upside down, seeming to be trying to get their attention or something like that. Some of the other puppies do the same thing, so I kind of assumed it was normal puppy behavior. Sometimes she does try to go for ears and hold on, though... which is obviously not very friendly.

Right now I'm watching a friend's puppy because they didn't check with their landlord before getting her... and this puppy seems to have an entirely different idea of what playing is. She reminds me of an untrained 10 year old dog. She's a collie, about 17 weeks old. She is not very playful and mostly likes looking around the house or just sitting or laying still. She likes human attention, but does not like the way Kai plays with her. She ignores her for a while and then will usually give her a little warning growl before snapping at her (I don't blame her since Kai plays rough). Kai might back away for a second when this happens, but doesn't seem to get the hint and jumps right back on her.

I would like the two of them to be able to be out in the house at the same time, but I'd like to figure out a way to teach Kai not to be so rough. I'd also like to get the collie to be a bit more tolerant, not necessarily for Kai's sake, but because a human kid could possibly annoy her in the same way and snapping at them would not be good. Any ideas?

[emilys]

don't know if it's possible. My experience with most breeds of collies is that they rarely like the "jump on your head" style of pit bull play. If Kai isn't respecting the collie's warnings and keeps going back, my opinion is you have to put her on time out. Maybe she'll learn... but maybe not.

[nyri]

I think they're getting over their problems, anyway... for the most part. The collie is starting to play like Kai (not sure if that's a good thing long term, but with Kai, it's fine) and Kai seems to be a little less in her face all of the time. The problem that is still a problem is when Kai decides the collie ears look like a tug-of-war rope or something and grabs them and won't let go. She does this sometimes in her puppy class with the other puppies, too... maybe I should just rub something a dog would consider gross all over the collie's ears? I'm going to start taping her ears, and I'm afraid that will make them look like even more fun to play with.