Pit Bull Play Info

[pitbullpassion]

Ok, this keeps coming up with adopters who are first time pit bull owners OR first time 2-dog owners ... they are totally freaked out by rough pit bull play.

I need a resource to point them to that explains what is normal and what is not, when to intervene, how to encourage proper playing behavior, anything like that??

H E L P

[emilys]

this is a great topic!

[pitbullpassion]

Dec 27, 2010 12:21:19 GMT -5 emilys said:

this is a great topic!

I agree, but so far no one has anything to contribute, LOL :-[

[maryellen]

i found this on badrap:

www.badrap.org/rescue/keepingthepeace.html

www.badrap.org/rescue/multidogs.html

when i had 3 dogs i only allowed 2 to play at once, as 3 was not good lol... i just watched for whoever was getting annoyed or didnt want to play, and i only limited play to 20 minutes at a time as that was the good limit mine could play before one of them would start to get over stimulated.. every dog is different, so you really have to go on the dogs individual personalities...
like jesse and rufus would play like sumo wrestlers- bumping, jarring, smacking each other into the fences etc, lots of grabbing and paw smacking... jesse pretty much taught rufus how to play rough her style as i got him as a pup and jesse was almost a year old at that point.. jesse and sonny were never allowed to play as sonny hated her rough play style, and him and rufus were not really allowed to play either since rufus played rough. rufus and ruby were only allowed to play for 15 minutes as anything after that ruby got really revved up and took it to another level. ruby and jesse were only allowed to play in the house, as they both would get revved up way too fast outside.. rufus and jesse could play inside or outside and both always knew when to back down..

rufus and jesse playing a few years ago:







it was VERY rare that jesse and rufus would run around the yard like the last picture, they mostly wrestled based on the other pics posted. and again, this type of play they did was all based on their personalities, they were not allowed to play with other dogs like this .. since jesse trained rufus on how to play her style it worked for them, if rufus had sonny to play with (sonny was almost 7 when i got rufus and wasnt into playing he preferred to just hang out )then his style of play would have been way more relaxed and calmer.. but since jesse was about a year old when i got rufus she was still a puppy in a sense and her and rufus teamed up and bonded more in every way.. rufus from learning how to play jesse's style really can piss off a dog that doesnt play that way so he isnt allowed to play like how he played with jesse.