I have been reading Denise Fenzi's blog and watching her training videos with her puppy. I have learned a lot about playing with a dog. Sometimes I want to slap my past self! I really, really didn't know how to speak 'dog' when Tibby was a puppy. Sorry Tibs :( I'm trying to do better though!
I love watching a whole string of the videos of Denise Fenzi's puppy Lyra and see the progression. It's neat to see how her puppy learned and changed. I like the way Denise interacts physically with Lyra. When Tibby was a puppy I (extremely unfortunately) took the advice that any time Tibby tried to play with me physically - jumping on me, mouthing, pulling on my clothes - that she was trying to be dominate. When in reality.....she just wanted to play and needed some redirection.
I'm still learning and I don't understand it all. It being playing. So I don't want to write like I'm some authority on it. My attempts to play with Tibby are pretty hilarious. I'm sure Tibby thinks I'm a little....slow. But we are having A TON O' FUN!!! We play a lot.
Last night I tried personal play without a toy. Tibby LOVED it! She was better playing with me than with her favorite tug. She played with me and I have the scars to prove it! LOL! Nah, not scars, just little scratches. We wrestled and she chased me and I chased her and Tibby ran around like a crazy beast. And then tonight we played again! Even better - Tibby offered banging the teeter to start our play game. Every time I would start to slow down, she would bang the teeter again - like a restart button! Because OF COURSE I go crazy when she bangs the teeter! Hee hee :) She loves it :)
So as a re-cap: My hard to motivate dog likes to play with me :) No toys or treats in sight.
