Those with multiple dogs...

Bigpoodleperson

Bigpoodleperson

Megan and Draco
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
892
Points
16
Location
WI
Do you find that your dogs play with each other? If you brought in a second dog, did the established dog eventually enjoy it and play? Do they initiate play in the house if they are bored, or do you just have two bored dogs that you need to play with?

I know that a lot of it depends on the individual dogs temperament too. We are considering getting a puppy in the next year, and I have never owned two dogs. Draco does enjoy playing with other dogs, and is good with other dogs. Just wondering if on rainy/snowy days if your dogs tend to play with each other in the house when they are bored, or if you have to initiate the play with both? I am not getting another dog to be a substitute for me playing with them. Just pondering if the new-ness wares off and the don't really play inside much. :)
 
Growing up, I had five dogs and only certain pairs played with each other. But that was only occasionally. They mostly all just co-existed and didn't interact very much.

My two now have similar personalities and play style and they play quite a bit together. Their favorite is tug of war together. On rainy days or days where I just want to sit in peace and quiet is when their the worst and want to be playing right on top of me, or running around the house as I'm trying to watch a movie. I thought they'd self entertain but I think they're mostly trying to gain my attention by playing with each other lol
 
When I first got Payton Auggie looooved to play with him. It was immediate but developped from little chase games to tug with toys to full on wrestling over a couple weeks as they got to know each other.
Auggie didn't want to play with Georgie when she first got here. She and P would play together and Payton, even being a huge rambunctious puppy, was so gentle with her (she was so tiny!) It took Auggie a long time to play with her, now he loves to play with her too.
Auggie has recently stopped playing with Payton even though P still tries to initiate... I think P has just gone after him in non-play related incidents enough times he doesn't want to play anymore. Also if they started getting rambunctious, my dad would yell at them to stop, so I think he just has bad connotations to playing with Payton now. :/ Auggie is pretty low maintenance now anyway though, he mostly just wants me to throw a ball for fetch, so I do that while wrestling with Payton with my other arm.

Pepper never played with Auggie or Payton despite their best efforts. She would play with Georgie though. And if the boys and Georgie were playing she would sometimes get involved in the game, but I'm sure she would say it's important to note she was obviously just playing with Georgie and not those gross boys...

Payton really needs a doggy friend to play with. So does Georgie. They are sad to not live together anymore and both you can tell are just delighted when they get together again...
 
All of my boys play together. In fact, Gambit plays only with Gimmick and Glitch. I am very curious to see if he will play with Little Richard.

Glitch will play with anyone at daycare, but is happiest when it's him and his brothers. Gimmick occasionally engages other dogs, but mostly hangs around Gambit or Glitch.

When they see each other, they immediately run together and start to play. I got so lucky with these three.
 
Meg played with Gusto quite a bit for the first couple of months. She tends to be more playful with puppies, but rarely plays with any adult dog. They never really play together now, although they seem to like each others company and love running hip-to-hip in the woods.

Gusto is still a pretty playful dog, he just gets his playtime with other doggy friends.
 
Ryker and Panzer love to play and initiate play with each other all the time. Gypsy is a grouchy old lady and just referees on the side.
 
[YOUTUBE]YR4AE20hBxo[/YOUTUBE]

That'll probably answer your question LOL. This is typical at my house. All 3 of them initiate play throughout the day with each other.
 
Mine all play with one another, and they all have their preferences as to whom they play with. Usually they split themselves into pairs, as three is kind of awkward sometimes. But they also know when enough is enough and understand that I don't enjoy them roughhousing all day every day.
 
Wilson tries to initiate play with Sam a lot and they'll usually play wrestle/biteyface for a little bit but they don't play a whole bunch inside the house. They do play chase outside but no they wouldn't entertain each other on say a rainy day enough for it to substitute exercise (well for Sam maybe)
 
Pip does not really play. He'll occasionally join in a short game of chase but he's just not the kind of dog who plays at all, ever.

The youngsters, though, will play with each other almost forever. They mostly play chase and wrestle, plus Toast & Maisy love to tug although Squash isn't really a tugger.
 
Dixie & Rudy play together, sometimes. Dixie is more about fetch than playing with Rudy, though. ;) Our new girl, Lizzy doesn't play with our dogs. She's still adjusting we've only had her for 11 days now though. So I don't expect her to be BFFs especially with her rough past. But, she warmed up to my brother's dog right away. He's more her size although bigger. She's going to be sad when they have to go back home. She adores my brother & Archer.
 
For me the bigger issue is stopping the play :) In general inside the house they don't really play much (which is what I want), but when exercise is lacking and they're getting antsy they usually get a little crazy with each other.
 
Kiba hated Stryder at first, but eventually ended up loving him and they would play a lot together.

Tsuki & Lincoln I got at the same time and they'd chose to play with each other more often than with the Schnauzers.

Added Charlie, her favorites were Lincoln and Stryder to play with (I don't remember if she liked to play with Tsuki or not :confused: ). Kiba will chose to randomly play with her.

Nimbus joined... haha she mostly steers clear of the other dogs but I have caught her time to time trying to play, then she runs off and just plays by herself or with me.

When I added Ollie that totally disrupted the play groups. It used to be Charlie & Lincoln, sometimes Charlie & Stryder but Lincoln would get jealous. Now it's Ollie & Lincoln, with an occasional Ollie & Charlie. Same play groups above apply.

And then the ever constant Nimbus & Kiba spats, they go in circles so we kinda call that playing? lol
 
Riley is a pinhead - he likes to control the play and gets snappish if his rules aren't followed. Michaela listens, to a point, then just bowls him over and races around like a crazy dog with Riley in hot pursuit. They do like to wrestle a lot, but also like to wait for an audience (me) to cheer them on. All of this is outside, they're too big to play more than bitey-face in our small house.

Murphy also plays a little, carefully, with Riley who tends to yell at him for moving. It's a shame, because Murphy was so good about playing with Riley when he was a puppy and now Riley is a brat to him. Murph much prefers Michaela, who alternates gentle wrestling with ear washings.
 
The first solid week you'd think Maddie hated Bailey. But that's how she does with fosters too until they learn what's acceptable and not acceptable. Now they both initiate play and wrestle and play, usually when I come home from work or after a walk. Bailey will tease her with a toy until they chase and tug. She'll also tug on Maddie's ears, they'll both lay on their backs and mouth eachother. Maddie will jump on top of her and roll off. They do it when I get on the phone too and I have to yell at them to stop because they're play growling and wrestling is loud and I can't hear LOL.
Bailey's been good for Maddie, getting her active again, she toned up and lost some of her excess weight. Even the vet said so ;)
 
Skill and Siri play a lot. Enough that we now have a cease and desist cue or we can't watch television.

There is some play that they can do whenever (blanket bitey face is their favorite, and they can do it for hours, it is ridiculous), but I limit the jump on and off the couch type play in the house because it can escalate quickly. Outside they really, really like playing chase.

Frodo and Siri used to play, but are not given the opportunity to anymore. Frodo has initiated play with Skill a couple of times, and they've played for maybe 30 seconds. Frodo is super awkward and Skill doesn't seem to know what to do with him :p
 
Crystal and Hero coexist lol. They rarely do anything more than sniff or lick each other, it's almost as if the other dog doesn't even exist to them. Occasionally Hero will bark at Crystal, and she will usually ignore him and that ceases all play. Every once in a while Crystal will try to initiate play and he will roll over onto his back, and that ends Crystal's attempts. I'm hoping they'll learn and adapt to each others play styles as they continue living together though.
 
Brisbane and Ru play occasionally, mostly Ru dances around on his hind legs and tries to lick Brisbane in the mouth and wrap his paws around Brisbane's neck. Ru is 6lbs and Brisbane is 40lbs so this looks incredibly silly. Once in a great while they will wrestle on the bed, but this often escalates because Ru is perpetually on the line between playing and fighting with this sort of play. It doesn't take much to push him into tiny berserker rage.

Brisbane and Sisci play biteyface quite a bit, this is what casual training sessions tend to devolve into because they're just so darned excited to work and it's so hard to not be biting something. Sisci is very gentle with Briz and careful not to push him around, he really doesn't like wrestling or much physical contact. Outside they tend to ignore each other.

Sisci and Ru wrestle a lot. Deep in his tiny heart, Ru wants to make cattlehuahuas. I think a lot of their wrestling is actually a 6" dog trying to hump a 17" dog that won't keep still. Sisci does a lot of play bowing and rolling on her back and obviously has a good time. She's much better than Brisbane at talking Ru down when he goes into "Oh no you didn't!" mode.

Ru also plays with the cats. He bounces around and growls at them and they slap him and maybe run away if they feel like it. He likes to bite their ears and occasionally hump them if he ends up in the right position for that. The stupid one used to go limp when she'd had enough, and let him drag all 12lbs of her around by her collar.
 
All the time. They had some kinks to sort out at first (mainly that Polly's version of play initiation is to leap on a dog's shoulders - yeah, she's had to learn that not everybody enjoys that...), but now they play at least once a day.

I make them keep it toned down because I don't want them slamming into my flimsy apartment doors/furniture and wrecking everything. Without a yard they don't really have space for that kind of play anyway, and Polly also gets overaroused if the speed picks up and devolves into some prey drive-esque behaviors that **** Astro off. They are super nice about playing on my bed/in confined spaces though, Astro actually seeks her out for that and they can roll around doing their weird groaning/bitey face/paw smacking dance for hours. In that context they take lots of natural breaks, do mutual shake-offs, just all around niceness, so I don't interrupt that.

Because Polly's play overwhelms Astro sometimes, I don't leave them alone together so they don't tire each other out while I'm gone or anything. And the type of play they ramp up to on rainy boring days is the sort of escalating play that I have to stop, so really it's a wash. Ultimately I am still spending over twice the amount of time exercising dogs as I spent with just Astro, because their amount of play that I allow them to have doesn't offset the individual time they need from me. I wish it did!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Members online

Total: 111 (members: 2, guests: 109)
Robots: 53
Back
Top