my brother and his dog, a 2 years old German short haired pointer came to visit today. Naturally Arnie lost his mind when Obe turned up and they played for ages. No dramas. But when obe was over it and wanted to chil, Arnie had trouble comprehending that it was time to chill out. How can o teach him that sometimes there's a time to go and sometimes there's a time to stop?
When Dexter was younger and I had a dog over for a play date( usually a peer not an elder) I used to separate them for a bit of it was getting too hectic.....I also used to use frozen kings....give them one each and leave them to chew and chill .....sometimes they will chew themselves into a little rest of snooze but sometimes not.
It comes with experience and age, to some extent. If you have chances to work on it, then stopping play for "chill" time every now and again would be a good thing; with a kong or other chew as Angela suggests. But he will settle down in his own time anyway, even if you can't actively train it.
Fair enough. Thanks for the insight guys. Guess there's not much I can do, just wait for maturity. Obe does really well, but he is just over 2 years old. Arnie is like the annoying younger brother. He just doesn't quit. It's funny to watch.
I didn't mean there's nothing you can do about it; you can, absolutely. You need to train him to be calm and settle down in the company of other dogs The more he does this, the more he'll get used to doing it.
I don't let my dogs do the playing for ages thing. It's not something I want my dogs to do, and - for some dogs, not all - it leads to over excitement and them thinking doggie play is the most interesting thing in the world - sounds like Arnie might be like this? This isn't something I want my dogs to think. I want them to think that paying attention to me, and training or hanging out with me is the most interesting thing. I want my dogs to be relaxed, confident and well mannered with other dogs - and that's all. So that's all I work on. Very soon after meeting another dog, I will encourage my puppy to turn away and re-engage with me. My attention is completely on my puppy being able to say hi and turn away, and when I have the opportunity, not saying hi at all and just watching another dog work - learning that we sometimes don't say hi and we don't play at all. So, I'd look for as many opportunities as you can to chill around other dogs, and not play with them.
Yeah I fully understand what you mean @JulieT. We do our obedience classes and then I insist on focus on me all the time. This was when I actually wanted him to play. He just didn't know when to quit. He still struggles even at class, but gets there with encouragement for the most part. It's ok. I think I don't need to be too concerned about it. I agree with @snowbunny in that it comes with experience and age. Also appropriate exposure, which we are working on, so it's not a major issue. It's an interesting behavioural trait for me tho.
Yes, I know you wanted your dog to play - I don't ever want my dogs to play for more than a few seconds or a minute. I just view them playing as an opportunity to train disengage from play. That's what I meant. You said your dog had been playing for ages, and then he couldn't stop. The problem is probably that he had been playing for ages - so lots of just play for a minute, then stop, is what you need to do to train 'stop playing'. Even when you want him to play....(although I'm not sure why, I know people want to do this).
