Learning to play

[snowbunny]

I'm taking a few play-based courses at the moment and learning to play effectively with the hounds. The reasons for this are several-fold:
1. It will give me a broader range of reinforcers
2. Through personal play, I will be able to reinforce even if I don't have any food or toys to hand
3. It will allow me to measure my dogs' arousal/stress levels
4. It will allow me to adjust the dog's arousal levels by changing my own energy
4. It will give me a strong therapeutic tool.

I thought it might be interesting to post some videos here to record progress.

I would consider that the way I train is through play, but that is quite structured in that I'm working on behaviours, even though I'm making it fun. So I wanted to distinguish that from what I'm doing here, which is more free-flowing. The courses distinguish three different sorts of play:
Toy play: playing with your dog with a toy. Chasing and retrieving doesn't really count, as we're working on up close interaction between handler and dog, so you'd want to be tossing toys no more than a few feet every now and again, with the bulk of the play being a lot more intimate.
Food play: animating food, having your dog chase your hands, catch the food etc. As with toy play, this should be in quite close so it's real interaction rather than just the dog chasing food.
Personal play: no toys, no food, just you and the dog playing.

This video of Shadow isn't quite "baseline" as we've been working on things over a few sessions, but it's still quite early days. He plays really nicely and is by far the easiest of the dogs to play with. I think you can really see our relationship in this video
His toy play is coming on; a week ago, he had absolutely no interest in this toy. I need to work on him targeting the ball end, though. His personal play is soft and goofy; I need to work on ways of changing my energy to lower his arousal levels, as it's very easy for him to become over-aroused.

 

[Anne123]

The shoving and floor play I usually do with Finn! The first play I like very much! Didn’t know that one and will try that with him!

 

[HAH]

Great to watch, you can see his easy goofy style of play and your interaction is lovely.

Do keep posting on these if you have time, it's a fairly new concept to me that play can be developed and made more effective so I'm keen to see what sorts of things you cover and how you find them.

 

[snowbunny]

Do keep posting on these if you have time, it's a fairly new concept to me that play can be developed and made more effective so I'm keen to see what sorts of things you cover and how you find them.

Sure, I'll post up the other two, too. Willow is a very tough nut to crack so will hopefully be useful for people with similar dogs. Squidge will play if she's in the mood, so she's a bit of a halfway house, and I have to learn more about how best to develop what we have there.

 

[Beanwood]

Lovely video showing different forms of play, very interesting!

Willow sounds similar to Bramble, who is challenging when it comes to playing. Generally, she is a slow burner, but every now again if play is too intimate (close) she can lose it completely, so I tend to avoid playing too close, on the floor for example. Food games though, she adores and will get nicely aroused, and from then bounce easily into a training session.

More videos, please!

 

[snowbunny]

I'm just uploading Willow's, which was a bit of a disaster! She was a bit over-aware in the environment - what I didn't know at the time, but she probably did, was there was a storm brewing. It's so very difficult with her anyway because she's wary of novelty, and this is very novel! So it can stress her out. Well, you'll see when the video eventually uploads.... but it gives us a good starting point that I can use to work from, and the videos are so useful for seeing things that you can't see when you're in the moment.

 

[Stacia]

I have never played physically with my dogs and they don't play with other dogs! However, (only have one now) he is very happy, not deprived as we have a close relationship and he loves retrieving. I don't understand why I don't play.

 

[Beanwood]

Just a musing here really. I guess I am also trying to understand the more practical implications of play. A dog that is comfortable and relaxed playing obviously enjoys the human interaction, and indeed initiates play on most occasions, does it mean THAT dog easier to train, is a happier dog because of the close bond with it's human? If we are playing more, does that mean also they understand us better? Hmmmm...

I don't really play that much, yes with Benson because I HAVE too, he just won't take no for an answer, and he is quite creative in the games he plays! Casper has got more playful and adores very close, and intimate play. Bramble is another matter. Sigh...

 

[Emily]

Lovely video!

I think Ella is a bit like Shadow but possibly a touch more on the bonkers side

One shove in the chest and it's game on!

 

[snowbunny]

Just a musing here really. I guess I am also trying to understand the more practical implications of play. A dog that is comfortable and relaxed playing obviously enjoys the human interaction, and indeed initiates play on most occasions, does it mean THAT dog easier to train, is a happier dog because of the close bond with it's human? If we are playing more, does that mean also they understand us better? Hmmmm...

I've really come to this idea of using play for more situations from the noise course I did with Willow; it was obvious there how powerful the concept of play can be for so many things. Here's a few thoughts off the top of my head:

Counter conditioning - this is the biggy for us. By building up that CC "party", which is essentially play, you can use it therapeutically. As I've talked about recently, we can proof this play in increasingly complex scenarios so that the dog is able to play even when their triggers are around. For a noise sensitive dog, this means we can play during a storm, for example. For a reactive dog, we can play in the presence of other dogs. If we think about the stimuli as being on a traditional weighing scale, the trigger being on one side and the thing we're using for CC on the other, it's easy to visualise how a big trigger pushing one side of the scale down needs something strong on the other side to give equilibrium. Using the example of Shadow being reactive to other dogs; the presence of the dog pushes the left hand side of the scale to the floor. I can use food if he's still able to take it, but food (however much he normally loves it) is fairly neutral in those circumstances. I'm piling up food just to the right of the fulcrum. Nothing much is happening to how he feels about the trigger itself, so going forwards we're not going to see much change. Scatter feeding will help more, in that it will help lower his arousal and that in itself feels good, but it's still only slowly working towards neutrality. However, if I can build my play to a point that it is really powerful, I am putting far more weight on that right hand side of the scale which means it'll get back to neutral a lot faster and even start tipping towards the positive - the presence of another dog predicts great play, woohoo! For a dog like Shadow, you can see how play can easily give him more of the "feel good" hormones than just food. For Willow, well, it's a work in progress but it's absolutely helping. In fact, yesterday we were out on a walk when we heard some rumbles and she pricked her ears as she looked at me, rather than worriedly looking around, and bounced over for our "party". So as much as play is far more difficult for her, I think it's something that is well worth investing a lot of time into.

In the same bracket as those things above, there's things like alert barking. Shadow is an alert barker, and using a CC party is definitely helping with that. Scatter feeding works really well here, too, but again, I can think of it in terms of getting to the end result faster if I can link that sound with something brilliant. Of course, we have to be careful with this - do I want a dog that comes running to me when he hears a trigger noise, or do I want him to not even respond at all? Well, I would say a bit of both. At this moment, if he alert barks when I'm not expecting it, I want him to come to me rather than running at where the noise is coming from. I need that so I can apply the counter conditioning. But going forwards, I want him to not feel he has to respond to the noise. But this is where we can use play to adjust the dog's energy levels....

The biggest mistake I've made in the past, especially with Willow, is trying to "gee her up" with really high energy levels. There is no doubt this has had the opposite effect and completely turned her off. Denise Fenzi talks about matching your energy level to the dog's. It makes sense. Imagine you're feeling really chilled out and someone comes running up to you, squealing and pulling at you. Wow, irritating as hell, right? But if they come to you, match your chilledness (new word) and gradually introduce a topic of conversation that starts to get you excited and more animated, you can see how that could be effective at raising your energy levels to the same point as she came in, but without over-facing you. So if you think of having a scale of 1-10 in your energy levels, you want to start off by matching your dog's level and then, to adjust it, you can go one point higher or lower, depending on what you're trying to achieve. This means you can use play, especially personal play, to actually lower your dog's arousal levels.
So what I've been doing with Shadow when he alert barks is call him to me, and we have a fun game on the bed. But I gradually reduce the energy level of the game until he's just laying there having calm strokes. So I'm starting off with whacking that scale form the left over to the right, but then slowly working back to a calm state. This means we're not only using play as an effective counter-conditioner to the trigger noise, but also using it to establish calmness.

Another thing is that I think it really gives you a much deeper understanding of what makes your dog tick. You have to video the sessions to see it. You can watch how your dog plays with other dogs and try to emulate the movements - does your dog like to chase, or to be chased? Do they grab at feet, legs or the neck more often? Do they shoulder barge etc etc. The way they play tends to mirror the way they like to be played with. So watch that and try to copy it, but also watch the video and see how your dog responded to everything you tried. And remember that it depends so much on the situation, your dog's existing energy levels etc. These things need proofing! If you're not someone who does this sort of play with their dogs very much (*raises hand in air*) then your dog has every right to think you've lost your marbles and be a bit on the back foot to start with. So you have to make it easier, do it more in places and times when they feel more comfortable and try to build on that. Once you and your dog have an understanding that "play is something we can do together" then you can start working on the initiation. DF says that if you have a dog who doesn't often initiate play, then make sure you respond to them whenever they ask for your attention. Drop everything and give it to them! Reward them asking to interact with you, and they will be more willing to interact with you in future. Of course, if you have a pushy dog, that would result in you doing nothing but playing all day. Which sounds like heaven, but most of us have to work, too - booo! But once you have that understanding that you can play together, you can be the one that starts asking if they're up for it. It can be put on cue. If you always follow the cue with play in the early stages, then it becomes a way of "asking" the dog it they want to play. And from there.... you can adjust their energy levels through play in order to get them a bit revved up for training, or to settle them down so you can watch some TV.

I think it's undeniable it will do nothing but improve your relationship, and the understanding between you. Because you will be understanding them better. For singleton dogs, having the opportunity for social play with their human must be wonderful, especially if that dog is reactive or anxious. And it's hugely reinforcing for us, too, to see our dogs having fun and laughing with us.

 

[snowbunny]

Here's Willow's video. As you can see, it was a bit of a disaster

She was very alert to the environment, as I mentioned above a storm was on its way so she may have been picking up on that, or it might have just been she wasn't in the mood.

Here are my observations and things I can learn from.
When I was sat down at the moment, she put herself in a down and was hesitant to chase the food. This is very much the behaviour I used to see in the very early days of starting work on my CC party, so I'm attributing it to being a bit nervy of the environment.

Her pushing to go under my leg is very brave for Willow! I wasn't expecting it, I was prepared to raise my leg to get her to go under it.

Giving her hand targets gave her something she knew and understood, raising her energy a little. I need to do this more when she's a little flat.
As soon as I stood up and was able to introduce more movement, her energy picked up and she suddenly became more animated. However, me bouncing around flattened her again, as she was unsure what on earth was going on

I played the "guess which hand" game with her, which she's played before, but I figured that since her confidence wasn't very high, I would make it so that she would always win - so held a treat in each hand! I don't know how clear it is in the video, but it was quite interesting that, even though she was always winning, a few times she was very hesitant about reaching to the hand. This made me think that the "regular" version of the game where the dog only wins if they get the right hand is a horrible thing to play with her; she's obviously been punished by not winning in the past.

The little snaps at my face at 3:36 are lovely - she does these when she's happy.

When I put my hands to my face and made snuffling noises, she was interested at first but then disengaged - boredom or too much pressure? I think that became obvious afterwards when I was trying to get her to chase me. She wasn't interested, not buying in to it - I'd pushed too hard. What I should have done at this stage was either called it a day, maybe done some scatter feeding to round it off, or else used the hand target to raise the energy again - you can see I finished on this and it was a good tactic.

My next session, I'm going to just focus on the games that it's obvious she likes - hand targeting and food chasing with me standing up. I might try to introduce a gentle game of "tag" as she seemed to respond well to the very gentle shoves I did towards the end. With her, familiarity will help to build the foundations of a good game and I can introduce other elements once she gets the idea that play time is something we do now!

 

[Aitch]

Play is a great way to learn about your dog and for them to learn about you. We all play with them as puppies after all.
I play with my dogs as often as I can because it gives me a really good idea what is going on with them. If there is a lack of energy one day I'll stop and think about what has been happening in their lives recently that may have made a change in them. If they are higher energy than usual I'll have a look at their diet or look at stress levels especially if the play seems a bit frenetic.
Play also builds their focus on the owner. This is essential for any high level training or for dealing with stressful situations.
It's just a fun way to connect with the dog.

 

[HAH]

The difference with Willow is remarkable, and to read your narrative alongside the video is fascinating @snowbunny - one of the most clear things from the video is how responsive you are to her shifts in mood and engagement. You change tactics very quickly, and that fluidity in approach to play is maybe an important aspect of it - learning what's good on the day, what everyone's in the mood for, what the weather's doing etc.

We play 'guess which hand' in various ways too, and your thoughts have made me reflect on this with Kipper; at the moment, we only have one hand with kibble but actually, why do we do this? Probably because we're used to the 'human' version of the game where the gambling element is half the fun, but there's not necessarily the same motivator with dogs. He finds it quite exciting but also it's a good one to get him to focus. I'm now looking to learn some games we can play to reduce arousal and get him a bit more chilled, particularly before bedtime.

 

[Charlie]

Those two videos just go to show you how different dogs are. Willow is not as enthusiastic as Shadow who is clearly having a ball As a family we all play with our dogs. I especially do the laying around with dogs on top of me, guess which hand, running backwards as Charlie is lookig at me following me, gentle shuving games, favourite tug/ball toy, food games, hiding toys in our hands swapping them around. It took an absolute age for Charlie to engage in these games but he gets there and now thoroughly enjoys them. I feel due to them a lot of his other training is better as he is more focused on us for 'fun' Great videos Fiona, thank you xx

 

[Joy]

I found it very interesting to see how two litter mates, with the same life experiences, could react so differently.

I also found this very helpful:

Denise Fenzi talks about matching your energy level to the dog's. It makes sense. Imagine you're feeling really chilled out and someone comes running up to you, squealing and pulling at you. Wow, irritating as hell, right? But if they come to you, match your chilledness (new word) and gradually introduce a topic of conversation that starts to get you excited and more animated, you can see how that could be effective at raising your energy levels to the same point as she came in, but without over-facing you.

I think bearing this in mind will help me with Molly. When she wants to play she can be very lively, but she won't necessarily respond if she's not in the mood / it's the wrong time - if I get a toy out and she doesn't feel like playing, she'll just look disdainfully at it. (She takes a long time to get going in the morning, whereas evenings are the time she wants interaction.) I think when I want to practise competition heel-work and am tryig to get her to move more energetically, I need to do a gradual build up of energy levels, as she won't just 'switch on'. Perhaps I'll start with hand targets and then chasing food.
I read a similar thing (can't remember where) in relation to hypnosis, where the hypnotist needs to mirror the subject's breathing, body posture etc to create rapport first.
Lots to think about - thank you!

 

[snowbunny]

Willow update from last night.
I took what I had seen in the previous attempt's video and worked on that; hand targeting and food chasing to keep her happy, engaged and laughing. We had great success. In time, I want to be working on more personal play that isn't reliant on food, but I think I'll get there through the use of food.

Actually, this morning, after our restless night of storms and high winds, she came up to the bedroom with me when I went up to grab my clothes for the day, and we had a bit of a play on the bed. I love it when she's in a playful mood in the morning, she gets all sorts of silly. I was quite surprised given the night we'd had, even though she didn't react badly to the storms at all, I thought it would have shut her down a little, but apparently not. She rolls around on her back, insisting on tummy rubs and mock-snaps at me if I stop. I make claw hands and graaaaaah at her, grabbing her feet as she rolls around looking ferocious and snarling loudly at the other dogs if they DARE to get too close to her. For their part, they don't believe her one iota. It's totally precious.

Anywho, back to the video.

I started off with chasing food while standing up to get her animated and loose. Then I brought in a hand target and a chase of food to get some contact going between us, followed by her jumping up against me. This is something she normally really likes to do, but I noticed in the last video that she was really reluctant, especially when I put my hands on her. So this time, I kept it so I didn't touch her and just fed her in that position.

Options for toy play are pretty limited right now, as she finds most toys stressful (my fault for over-facing her in the past). She does love playing with balls, though. For the noise sensitivity class, I started working on playing with balls in a small area and she really started to get into this game. You can see she enjoys it, and willingly gives up a ball that is bounced for her to catch or thrown straight to her to catch, whereas she used to play keep-away. She's dropping it to engage nicely in the game with me, rather than it being about possessing the article.
New to us was the restrained chase. She seemed to love this! I think it worked better when I restrained her from my side, so she got the element of competition to chase the ball. She can lack confidence when there's competition, so I think this will be great for her to learn that she has a good chance of winning and therefore build that confidence. In reality, she's a faster dog than Shadow so should beat him every time in a straight race, but she lacks the belief in herself. I hope to build that up with this play.

All in all, I was very happy with this session; it shows me that if I choose the right type of games and the right type of energy, she can enjoy playing with me.

 

[snowbunny]

Squidge is going through a phase where she's not really enjoying being touched. I think it's just part of her growing up (very slowly!) and losing that part of puppyness. On one hand, she loves to sit on us (when it's not too hot) and loves tummy rubs, but she's starting to become a bit unimpressed by regular strokes and petting. So when it comes to play, it's a bit harder than with Shadow to get that level of tactility. Because of this, I'm approaching her play in very much the same way as Willow's - lots of food play, targeting and the like. Squidge does love a game of tug with the right toy (you'll see the toys I tried here aren't the right toys!) but she's not hugely into ball play, although that is coming slowly.

I tried a restrained hand target here, which you'll see was a bit of a wet blanket, so I'll throw that one away for now at least. I need to find the right toy that she will really drive towards; even with food, she'll pretty much amble. That said, she adores "stealing" things, so I might be able to work with that by chasing her to a dead toy. I'm not sure, we'll have to suck it and see. One for the next session.

She didn't seem to like the feel of the fleece tug toy in her mouth. She was trying to give it to me, but not with any enthusiasm to make it a game, just because that's what she does. What I would like to see with her is actually a bit of a trend to play keep-away, as that shows that she actually desires the toy.
Then I tried with a rabbit skin squeaky chaser toy. She was a bit more animated with this one at first, but again I felt it wasn't really mutual play; she was chasing because it was "running" but once she had it, she had no real interest in it. You'll see she even turned away when I presented it to her to grab. Nope, not interested thanks! Next session I'll try a toy that I know she does like on the whipit stick to see how we get on.

We played a bit of elementary "tag" afterwards, and this went pretty well, I thought. She seemed to quite enjoy the little shoves and chase at first. I have to be careful not to wear her out, though, as she really feels the heat (despite this being late evening and so relatively cool) and she was definitely tired by the end when her body language changed to let me know she'd had enough.

Next session I will keep shorter, try to get higher energy sooner through whipit followed by hand targeting with chasing me, onto restrained chase, maybe some tag and then food play to finish.

All good learning, though, and I look forward to working on our range of interactive play.

 

[VanillaBean]

I play with Vanilla, have done so from day one. Like @Aitch said good way to find out what is going on. I can touch her all over (I also do this at our Sunday morning grooming sessions). OH thinks I am a kid, but she laughs seing me roling around on the lawn/floor playing with Vanilla.
Don't know if it makes any difference on the training side, but I have found it easier than I thought to train Vanilla.

 

[Plum's mum]

I also roll around on the floor/bed with Plum, or lie down with my head buried making daft noises so she'll come and investigate and then the fun starts!
Sometimes I just pull a goofy face at her, eyes wide, mouth wider, and she gets really excited.
One of the dogs I grew up with used to love raspberry blowing on the tummy but Plum doesn't react.