THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

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 to that, I discussed the research of Rooney, Bradshaw and Robinson (2001) who video taped people trying to get their dogs to play (without using toys.) They found that people tried a variety of actions to get their dogs to play, some were effective and some weren’t. (And there was no correlation between how frequently someone tried a behavior and how effective it was! I just love that.. it is so human.)

People, ineffectually, tried whispering, patting the ground, kissing the dog and barking at the dog (to name a few). The effective signals were play bows, lunge toward and away (also called “start/stop” in other literature), running toward and away and adding vocalizations to other actions. I video taped a raft of cooperative people replicating the above, and here’s what came up:

1. People are REALLY bad at playing bows, unless they are willing and able to get down on all fours! (We’re just not designed to do it, you really need 4 legs after all.)

2. Running, as Rooney et al found, is a powerful way to elicit play (and has it’s dangers too… see Play Together, Stay Together by Karen London and me.)

3. “Start/Stop” is the easiest way to get many dogs in a playful frame of mind, but again, can elicit mouthiness or nipping in dogs if you’re not careful.

Keep in mind that the research kept toys out of the picture… as many of your comments have noted: there’s nothing like picking up a toy in front of a toy-loving dog to say RECESS! LET’S PLAY!

The other primary point of my talk was that dogs tend to play hard and fast and then pause, so that play sessions look like strings of play PAUSE play play PAUSE play PAUSE. This is especially true when they are play fighting (and less true, I suspect, when they are chasing and running). Given how many aspects of play, especially play fighting, are the same actions you see in serious fights, it makes sense that something needs to be built into the system to keep them cool. My suggestion is that we need to explain this to our clients in beginning family dog training classes… I think every beginning class should include a “How to Play with Your Dog” section in it. People are going to do it whether we bring it up or not, and besides emphasizing the value of object play, we can give them guidelines and boundaries about other types of play. We all know that play can go bad in a hurry (“I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.”) and it’s important for us to help owners avoid that.

Overall, I argued that play is a wonderful, wonderful way to enhance our healthy relationships with dogs (and is probably one of the reasons dogs and people get along so well.. play really isn’t that common among adult mammals) BUT, we need to be sure dogs understand when we are and when we are not playing, and play in such a way as to avoid over arousal. Karen London and I talk at length about the value of play, and how to do safely and constructively in Play Together, Stay Together (linked above)… I’d love to get your feedback on the booklet if you have it, on whether you include “How to Play” in your family dog training curriculum and/or more on how YOU play with your dog.

Here’s me playing silly with the same statue from the last post….

Pia Silvani’s, Director of Behavior and Training at St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in New Jersey, gave a talk at APDT that focused on play between adult dogs, and it was a fantastic presentation. The best part of the talk was her videos of dogs playing–both appropriately and inappropriately. My absolute favorite was a video of two Tervurens meeting, greeting and eventually playing together beautifully. It was a like watching two strangers meet each other, and end up dancing as if they were on Dancing with the Stars. Several things stood out in the video that are, I think, important aspects of healthy dog play.

First of all, the dogs were able to meet each other one on one, without other dogs around. So often it seems that dogs get introduced into a ‘pack’ and are overwhelmed by 3 or 5 or 7 other dogs all trying to get access to them at the same time.

Secondly, the dogs weren’t forced into anything; they were able to approach and withdraw often, which is another way that dogs can avoid too much pressure during a greeting. This reminds me of the Ph.D. research of Dr. Anneke Lisberg from the University of Wisconsin, who did some of the first real research ever done on scent marking in domestic dogs (familiarity breeds contempt in science too!). She found that dogs entering a dog park were most likely to be the ones urinating after a greeting ritual with the resident dogs, and that the “newbee” often ended a close encounter by trotting a few feet away and urinating. Dr. Lisberg speculates that the entering dogs can avoid tension during greetings by walking away from close contact w/ other dogs and urinating a few feet away. It would be as if the dogs were providing information about themselves in their urine, on the ground, to avoid all those noses stuck up under their tails. Interesting, isn’t it? This makes me think about indoor day care facilities, where dogs are inhibited from urinating… I wonder if that causes problems? It does seem, on reflection, that all dogs should be able to meet and greet outside where they can use urine to communicate.

Thirdly, the Terv’s in Pia’s talk began to play with lots of play bows and ’stop/starts,’ done with a good distance between them. Gradually, as their play continued, they began to play closer and closer to each other, and finally began to make contact only after several minutes of mutual play. It really was one of the loveliest examples I’ve seen of two dogs reading one another and politely beginning a relationship.

Contrast that with the video she showed of a poor (Boston?) little dog being tossed into the mosh pit of a busy day care. The dog was literally swamped by 5 or 6 (I’m guessing here) other dogs who overwhelmed it, ran after it, surrounded it and basically terrified the poor thing, giving it no chance to get a breath much less manage to be appropriately greeted. Thank heavens, there are many, many day care facilities who are very careful when they introduce new dogs, starting with a one-on-one session with a known “good greeter” and then gradually introducing them to the entire group… would that they all did this, yes?

I’d be curious about your experiences with your dog, both while greeting and playing with unfamiliar dogs. My Willie, aka “I-came-with-so-many-issues-Trisha-called-me-the-Spawn-of-Satan once,” plays beautifully with other dogs IF I manage the introduction so that he doesn’t get overwhelmed. First impressions matter with dogs too, don’t they?!

Here’s Pia mugging with a statue in Louisvile:

Speaking of great play between dogs, I recently visited some dear friends who I met through our mutual love of Great Pyrenees. Here are 2 photos of Czar, Tundra and Osa the Newfie playing as beautifully as dogs can play. What a joy it was to watch them!

And here’s yet another view of fall at the farm. Sorry, I just can’t stop myself.

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 observations or research!)

For example, look at this quote from “The Development of Aggression” by Tremblay, Hartup and Archer, 2005:

“For play fighting to remain playful, it needs to follow the 50:50 rule (Aldis 1975; Altmann 1962). That is, each pairmate has to win close to 50% of the playful encounters.”

Camille and Barbara tested this assumption in 3 litters which were observed as they developed in about 2,000 instances of play between two individuals (at 3-8 weeks, and at 10-23 weeks for 2 litters, and the third litter also at 27-40 weeks). They found that the 50/50 rule did NOT apply–12 of the 15 pairs in the first 2 litters observed did not reverse roles symmetrically. As a matter of fact, one female from the third litter was ‘on top’ 100% of the time, but her litter mate still initiated play preferentially with her.

In an earlier study, Dr. Erika Bauer and Dr. Smuts also tested the 50/50 rule in adult dogs at a dog park, and Dr. Smuts reported that there too, the 50/50 rule was not upheld. (By the way, it wasn’t reported at APDT, but this work also found that role reversals…. you mount me and then I mount you back….occurred during certain types of play, but not others. Chases and tackles were initiated by either partner, but mounts, muzzle bites and muzzle licks were consistently performed by the same dog. Perhaps certain types of play may be good indicators of social relationships between dogs?  Let me know if this fits with your own observations of play between your dogs or your dog and friends at the dog park.

Another aspect of Dr. Ward’s talk was about partner preferences. She found that (out of 1,300 instances of play initiation), the young puppies from 3 to 8 weeks showed no partner preference, the 10-23 week old pups the same, but the older juveniles (27-40 weeks) began to show strong preferences to play with one other individual from their litter. This preference was stable across time periods, and suggests that dog often form long lasting bonds with other dogs that should be acknowledged. The fact that some of our dogs become close friends with other dogs is, of course, not news to us, but I think it is important to remind ourselves that long-term stable relationships with another dog might be important to the dogs who live with people but not another member of the same species.

I think about that with my Will, who plays with Lassie several times a day, but I wouldn’t say they are close friends.  Will adores a  young Cavalier King Charles Spaniel… Brody, who comes to visit on occassion, but is moving to Florida soon. I’d love to get Will  a play mate, but hesitate to get another dog during Lassie’s last years. I am pretty darn sure she is not interested in sharing any more of  my attention… it’s tough, isn’t it, when you know one dog needs something that is the opposite of what the other dogs needs.  Will does have some other play buddies, but I think I should go out of my way to find him more; he and Brody seemed to have a special connection. I wonder if he will miss him? (I will! Not to mention missing his human!)

Speaking of play–here’s my colleague and dear friend Dr. Karen London, ‘playing’ on our way to dinner in downtown Louisvile.

Apologies for not writing sooner, but I’ve just come out of one of those “work tunnels” that we all experience from time to time.  What a joy to have come up for air and work Willie on sheep, rub Lassie’s creamy soft belly and go on a bike ride with Jim.

But, there’s so much to tell you about the Association of Pet Dog Trainers Conference last week in Kentucky.  I was only able to attend for two days, because I had to get back to give another speech on Sunday. I know I missed some great talks the last days at APDT, but I want to tell you about some of the great information that was presented at the Symposium on Play on Thursday. An entire day was devoted to the topic of play, and it was a joy to be able to go into a topic in depth.

(Truth in Lending: I’m not objective about this at all. I suggested the idea of a day-long symposium on play to APDT, after attending the Ph.D. defense of Camille Ward in Ann Arbor, Michigan last summer. She did her research, under the mentorship of Dr. Barbara Smuts, on play in domestic dog pups. I was on her committee, and was so inspired by her research that I starting thinking about what a huge topic play is, and how it deserved an entire day at a conference.  The folks at APDT (thanks Ian and Marion!) liked the idea and off we went designing a day of speakers…

So, I’ll give you a summary of each of the talks for the next couple of days, beginning with a few points from my Introduction to the Symposium, if you’ll bear with me. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about Camille’s research findings, and later about Pia Silvani and Karen London’s excellent talks. Ian Dunbar wrapped it all up in a bow at the end of the day, although he owes me big time (I’ll tell you why a little later on in the week. Stay tuned.)

Today I thought I’d mention one of the points I made early in the day, which is that one of the most important aspects of healthy play is that the stronger, faster individual self handcaps, or inhibits their speed and strength to match that of their partner. We humans, at least if we are polite ones, do this as a matter of course. What would you think of a mother who smashed a serve toward her seven-year old child who was just learning to play tennis, or a father who used all his strength when play-wrestling with his five year old?

Dogs do it too, as was illustrated in videos I showed of Lassie and Willie playing tug.  The first video was when Will was about 9 weeks old, and 12 year old Lassie not only plays tug with clear inhibition (she pulls back with less strength than she had, she shook her head from side to side with much less torque and speed than usual), but she moved the tug toy back toward Will’s mouth the few times she pulled it out of his mouth. The next video showed Will and Lassie playing tug just a few months ago. Will is two years old now, and so strong and fast I get a great workout playing tug with him myself. This time, at fourteen, Lassie is the weaker one. And yet, there’s Will, carefully pulling just hard enough to keep Lassie engaged in the game. He rarely shakes his head from side to side, and  he pulls just hard enough to make it a game,  even though he could rip it out of Lassie’s mouth in a micro second. It’s a lovely example of self handicapping (and why it makes me feel a little bit sentimental, I can’t say. There’s something so endearing about it….).

But here’s the challenge: self handicapping requires a lot of emotional control, and the irony about play is that part of its fun is that we can throw aside some of our inhibitions and lose a little bit of control. I suspect this is where a lot of dogs get into trouble. Playing, which often involves the same actions as fighting, can result in high arousal and a lack of inhibition… and spill over into aggression a bit too easily.  “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out” applies to dogs as well as people. Dogs need to learn to self regulate as they grow up, and I think we can  help them by teaching them games that involve learning patience and emotional control. For example, Will has learned to stay in a down-stay while I throw the ball for Lassie a few times, that’s just part of the game. He’s learned that being patient and polite leads to more play for him, and so is used to getting reved up, but calming himself down at a moment’s notice when asked.

I’m also a believer that it is good to interrupt dog play when it becomes a bit too energetic, especially when dogs are young, and especially when they don’t live together. There’s nothing wrong with helping dogs to learn to calm themselves, just as we do young children. (One of the tapes I played at the conference included the voices of a child and parent watching prairie dogs at the zoo. The adult’s voice, even when excited, stayed measured, but the child’s voice was a prime example of ‘emotional arousal.’ It was adorable really… “AH! There are NINE!!!!!! prairie dogs” the child shrieked when yet one more prairie dog came out of the burrow. His voice was so excited you could feel the arousal, and catch some of it yourself. After the child literally shrieked “NINE” at the top of his lungs, his good parents quietly said “Shhhhh..,” teaching the child to monitor his arousal level in certain situations. I think we owe the same to dogs, without being too protective or hovering over them.

I like what Pia Silvani and trainers at St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center do in puppy class: if it looks as if one puppy is getting out of control or starting to bully another, they calmly and gently take the potential offender by the collar and separate the pups. If the other one comes back for more, then it’s great to let them begin playing again.  If not, then it’s time to end the play session between those two pups. As we all know… it’s only really play if both participants are enjoying themselves.

Here’s a lovely play bow for you, sent to me by a super photographer…

Well, I’ve edited and compressed 31 separate videos for my 2 talks at APDT. Whew. They aren’t perfect, but some of them are truly instructive and a few are just plain fun. It’s been like being in a tunnel for the last 4 days working on these things, and still… I continue to be fascinated by all the issues related to play between people and other animals. One of the the things I’ll be talking about at APDT is how often dogs intersperse PAUSING with active motor patterns. As I watched videos of dogs playing I was impressed by how many times dog would use some typically exaggerated motor activity, whether it was a bite or a hip slam, and then stop and either stand still, or stay still in a play bow position. If you think about it, play bows not only provide information to the receiver that what happens next is “just in fun,” they also give the participants a ‘time out’ to manage their emotions.

I suspect this is one of the problems that people run into when they are playing with dogs. People don’t tend to pause as often during play, and often end up over arousing their dog. The dog spirals up, loses emotional control and ends up biting too hard or cycling into aggression. I’m going to suggest in my talk that dog training classes should include a section on play, including the importance of teaching both people and dogs a “pause” that is on cue for both of them.

I’m also going to talk about play signals… how individuals of both species tell one another that they want to play. It turns out that signals are relatively species specific. Here are 2 photos illustrating typical “I want to play” signals from a person and a dog:

Here is Jasper telling his human he’d like to play, using the stereotypical play bow of wolves and dogs.

Here is primate Sara  doing the classic “play face” of  a primate!  Primate usually communicate play with their faces, while dogs use a  full body posture…

How do you tell your dog you want to play?

And here’s a photo from fall at the farm. It is heartbreakingly beautiful right now.. I have to admit I am loathe to leave the dogs, the farm and the fall colors. But I know that once I arrive at APDT I’ll be caught up in the joy of intellectual stimulation and seeing good friends and colleagues. Come up and say hi if you’re there!

I’m deep in “speech preparation” tunnel, working sun up to sun down on my presentations about play at APDT next week. It’s a lot of work, but gratifying. Play is such an interesting topic, I wish I could spend a few months doing nothing but learning, thinking and writing about it. One of the most interesting things about play is its reason for being is a bit of a mystery. Why do animals play? The answer seems like it should be obvious, but the more you think about it, the less you know. Is it for ‘practice?’ That makes sense, since play is seen mostly in young animals who are physically developing. However, some of the research suggests that practice is not the primary force driving play… (in some studies animals kept from playing are equally adept at predation and fighting.) Another idea proposed historically was that animals played if they had “excess energy.” It’s certainly true that play is only found in individuals who are healthy and safe enough to have the luxury of playing, but there is no data that suggests that ‘excess energy’ somehow needs to be used up!

One current hypothesis is that play allows animals to train their bodies for the ‘unexpected.’ Play usually includes many actions that involve quick responses and exaggerations of movements seen in other contexts, etc, so this hypothesis has some favor now. Perhaps there are several reasons that animals play… surely there doesn’t have to be only one reason.

But there DOES have to be a reason that play is so common in some species (“it’s fun” isn’t enough! why is it fun?). Play is costly and dangerous, (just look at all the sports medicine clinics out there!) so there has to be a big evolutionary pay off.

Another condundrum that scientists face when studying play is defining it in a way that uniquely defines a behavior as play. This is a tricky one, because most of the actions of play are seen in other contexts, like fighting and predation, for example. Certainly there are times that it is overwhelmingly clear that animals, our dogs for example, are playing. However, sometimes it’s not so clear. I have had several clients who were relatively new to dogs who called me out for a “dog fight” that turned out to be completely appropriate play between two dogs having a great time. On the other hand, how many of us have been at a dog park and listened to someone say her dog is “just playing” when it’s clear the dog in question is a bully who has terrified all the other dogs at the park?

Here’s a question for you about the photo below, sent by someone I met at a seminar (thank you!) Are these dogs playing or fighting? If you feel sure you know.. how? What is it that caused you to decide?

…

Eeeeps, I was all set to settle in and enjoy writing more about our relationships with pets (and answers to your great questions) and then life got in the way. You know, in that “life is what happens when you are busy making other plans” kind of way. I like to say that “today didn’t turn out to be the video tape I thought I rented.”  Nothing bad about today, except the feeling that we all have on occasion that there is simply not enough time in the next two weeks to do what absolutely has to be done. I do want to talk more about society, pets and animals though… sometime soon. (And thank you for your generous comments about Calling All Pets.  They are very, very appreciated.)

So I write with a bit of an apology… I’m overwhelmed with doing wonderful stuff (at least I sure hope it turns out that way, a little nervous truth be told)… finishing the proofs on my new book from Dogwise, Tales of Two Species and working on three big speeches coming up.  Two are at APDT in Louisville on play (part of an entire day’s symposium on play, should be great.) and one at the Wisconsin Vet Medical Association Conference a few days later. If you are coming to either please come up and say hi, it would be great to me the faces behind the comments!

I’m up to my eyebrows in connecting cords that link video cameras, scanners, digital cameras, etc etc to my hard working Mac.  More soon… I’m on my way to soon to Atlanta to do a seminar at Atlanta Pet Rescue this coming Sunday. They have a new facility, sounds like it will be fun to celebrate with them….

Meawhile, it’s GORGEOUS outside.  Won’t be able to enjoy it too much, but will soak in what I can. Here’s a photo of  Will, two years ago, as a pup. We’re hoping it will be in the Tales of Two  Species book. Lassie is in the background, looking wise and noble.