Tug of war

I've seen in a dog training video that playing tug of war with puppies and dogs is a bad idea, because it teaches them to contest your will. I find this difficult to believe. I've had a lot of fun with my dogs playing like this, and haven't noticed any direct adverse effects. That being said, there might be other undesired behaviors that are linked to this, even though I don't know how. Opinions?

Tug of war is fine as long as there are rules (like no missing the toy and getting my hands, no jumping up while playing, etc.).

Also remember not to encourage the dog to beg for tug games by playing every time he wants to, after all if you are in the middle of something you don't want a dog shoving a toy in your face for 20 minutes lol. Or worse have him start barking at you to play.

Oh, and a pet peeve of mine is people shouting "drop it" at their dogs while playing tug when their dog has no idea what drop it means. Drop it should be taught separately from the game and only applied after the command is well known. Otherwise the dog will start to ignore those two words.

A much smarter person than me pointed out that tugging is a natural thing for dogs to do, and in fact they will do it when tearing apart a large animal. We use it as part of play training.

Yea I hardly think Sadie challenges me every time she gets a chance through a game of tug of war. Sadie loves it,and I love playing with her as well. It's a great source of exercise.

Tug of war games

Thanks everyone! Your thoughts mirror closely to my own, but I thought I'd check around. I've only once had a bad time playing tug of war with one of my dogs. We were using a long, large, knotted rope, and I got a bit too close. When she whipped her head around, the trailing knotted end cracked me in the nose hard enough for me to see stars. I thought my nose was broken for a second. My dog is an Aussie, and they tend to be very emotionally complex, which she demonstrated by dropping the rope and coming to check on me instead (I was laying on the ground at this point). It was pretty funny after the stars cleared out from my vision, and luckily (or not) the whole thing was caught on video.

you MUST post that video. it's pretty much a forum requirement cause I said so.

yeah, Tug is fine, and great fun, just have rules and have fun.