Friday, December 10, 2010

Playing With My Dog

I've spent the morning divided between cleaning, reading, working, and training. Most of the time, multitasking and watching this seminar-video of Karen London talking about play.

I LOVE it. I'm definitely going to be re-watching it a lot over the next few months. I wish there was a compact version of this for pet dog owners! I have a suspicion that it's probably in this book that I haven't yet read.

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When I worked at the boarding kennel/daycare facility a few years ago, I got to spend a lot more time watching and monitoring dog play (dog-dog and dog-people). Now I don't get to see as much play and I've not been as comfortable with dog-dog interactions as I used to be. At the shelter, I've become more careful about just putting dogs out in the usual groups rather than also new-different-appropriate groups. Several dogs have attempted at interacting through adjacent play yards.

My own dogs don't do as much playing other than with each other. Luna used to go to the dogpark but that stopped (and shouldn't have!) after Griffin came home over 2 years ago. She's not become as good with dogs, I don't know if that's related or not.

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Griffin doesn't have a lot of dog friends, but also hasn't seemed as interested as he used to be in dog-dog play when given the chance. Probably because he's getting older?

We'll be having more dog-human play this week for sure....!

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