Author Topic: Roughhousing with other dogs in house?  (Read 21190 times)

Offline Warlock7

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Roughhousing with other dogs in house?
« on: April 14, 2009, 03:07:10 pm »
Our 2 female Miniature Schnauzers like to roughhouse with each other. Now comes a 7-8 week old female Doberman. One of them likes to play rough with the little one, 17 versus 8 pounds. Should we allow it or put a stop to it? We don't want it to cause a more aggressive tendency. Your comments, help and experience would be greatly appreciated.

Offline Ursa

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Re: Roughhousing with other dogs in house?
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2009, 03:41:56 pm »
I don't allow overly rough play in my house.  None of mine would ever intentionally hurt another but we have always been mindful of how quickly the weight differences would become an issue.  Fargo already outweighs the girls by 30 pounds so we're glad we never let the roughhousing habit get out of hand.
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Offline Warlock7

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Re: Roughhousing with other dogs in house?
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2009, 04:00:10 pm »
So far, so good, we keep it down somewhat but my question is, besides calling them down each time and hollering "No!" several times how can we keep them from giving each other 'that look' and starting to scrap again? It seems to be a repetitive problem that we can't get a true handle on. They'll just start again later or tomorrow. They wouldn't intentionally hurt each other but the process gets old. If we are suppose to be in control how do we maintain it in this situation? Or, is this just innocent play that we should allow a little as play and exercise?
« Last Edit: April 14, 2009, 04:04:07 pm by Warlock7 »

Offline London_Pyr_Lover

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Re: Roughhousing with other dogs in house?
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2009, 01:57:41 am »
I would say that in all likelyhood, the dogs will sort themselves out.  I have a 97 lbs Great Pyr at home and a 17 lbs Cairn Terrier / Toy Poodle somethingoroth er, and to see them play you'd think I'd lost my mind keeping them in the same house! lol  Moo (the Cairn Terrier) will leap off the couch and grab onto Naja's jowls and swing around like that, and she (Naja) will literally roll over top of him, or paw him and hold him on the ground!  They're crazy!  But I've never had a problem with it getting out of hand.  If however, they're getting a little too crazy for me, I'll separate them for 5 minutes, or at least until the house stops shaking.  ;)
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Offline Warlock7

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Re: Roughhousing with other dogs in house?
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2009, 09:25:50 am »
Great! That's what I (we) needed to hear. Guess it is more normal than we thought. It seems appropriate for fun and exercise and to also establish the pack order since it isn't going "too" far. The "Settle !" command will definitely be used. Is it just a one word spoken command or do we need to preface it with training/followup? And at what age do we begin commands and age appropriate training. We took our Miniature Schnauzers to a PetSmart Puppy Class and both did well.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2009, 09:29:19 am by Warlock7 »