My boy LOVES other dogs. Drake has never growled at another dog, raised his hackles, showed his teeth, or anything like that. He doesn't even bark at them. He just sniffs them, gets excited, and invites them to play.

I exercise Drake with a walk before we go to the dog park, but as soon as we get there he finds inner reserves of energy I didn't know he had. He barely remembers I exist! When we finally get inside the park, he is full of doggie bliss as he meets other dogs. But as soon as they start playing, it's like he forgets himself and starts playing rough with them. He will put his paw on their backs, growl in a playful manner (but it still scares other dog owners), and chase any dog that starts to run. Sometimes he will actually push the other dog with his paw when they run, as if he is playing tag, causing the other dog to roll on the ground and get frightened.

I want for Drake to be able to play with other dogs, as he enjoys it so much. I just want to teach him somehow to be "paws off" and gentle when he does so. How can I begin to train him for this?

Thanks!
Deanna

my only advice would be to connect with other husky/mal owners in the area. The reality is that huskies play pretty rough by nature. It looks really worrying to owners of golden retrievers lets say, but huskies are strong and athletic, and play a little differently than other dogs. Explaining this to other owners is useless of course

The dog park i go to has a pretty high amount of huskies, so on any given day keeonah has a few dogs to play rough with. She is though, a petite husky, so she can't play too rough with other dogs, or she ends up being the one on her a**

A trained eye can see the difference between play and aggression, and it sounds like you have that. It's not your pups fault, it's the other misinformed owners. Welcome to the world of the husky

Sounds like normal ol' play to me. If I wanted to stop it I'd remove him from the fun as soon as he does behavior you don't approve of, with 100% consistency. Personally I wouldn't stop what it sounds like is happening.

rileyflorence wrote:

Personally I wouldn't stop what it sounds like is happening.

+1

only sometimes can I call keeonah off of play, and why would you? They're there to get their wiggles out and have fun. Sounds like he prolly is

Everything you described is very typical Siberian Husky play. They are not a gentle breed when it comes to playing. They have a very down and dirty - vocal play style which is why many people who don't know the breed or their traits confuse it with aggression.

The only time I would remove Bella from a situation is when a smaller dog (stature) came in. I don't allow her to fixate on chasing dogs because that can escalate very quickly. I'll allow her to do everything she wants to do until I see the situation escalate or an owner isn't very happy or understanding. Then again where I used to go - they were more keen to tell me just to let her go rather than have me pull her off.

Also - this is perfectly normal play for Appa. The grunts and growls he emits are quite scary ... at first. Now we're used to it.

Small dogs are no exception to him.




Notice he has grabbed her by the neck mid-run, ejecting the ball from her mouth while slamming her to the ground. I love watching him play.

sounds like normal mal/husky play to me! Everyone else said it better than me!

Looks normal to me.

Coquito and a German Shepard next door play exactly like that. Other people stop and look thinking they are fighting but leave when they see its actually play. Looks scary if you don't know how sneaky and dirty huskys play.

I love the pictures of the Appadog at play!

I agree with everyone else, it sounds like normal husky play, so isn't anything to worry about. It is sometimes useful to be able to call a dog out of a play session, but it takes a lot of hard work to make it reliable. If you want to do this, you will need some really high value treats (sausage or something else that he goes crazy for), and also to pick easy moments to begin with. Call him over, give him the treat, and let him go back to play. Pick moments when it seems that he is going to pay attention to you, or is boring of the play, because when he's in the midst of it he probably won't even notice you.

For a rescue dog, the other thing is sometimes that they are used to relationships with other dogs and not necessarily so used to having good relationships with people. The more effort you put into building a positive relationship with him, the more attention he will pay to you. Training sessions using positive methods, and/or a positive use of NILIF, are a great way to do this.

Ha, I have so much to learn about huskies!
Other owners are either great about it and laugh, or the more common reaction: they fret and ask for their dog to come to them and get away from my dog. :-\ There's just no explaining that my dog just plays that way. Maybe making doggie play dates is a better approach than randomly going to the dog park.
Thanks for the reassurance, everyone! I'll just have to associate with owners who understand.
Deanna

rileyflorence wrote:

Notice he has grabbed her by the neck mid-run, ejecting the ball from her mouth while slamming her to the ground. I love watching him play.

lol!!

There are a few puppies at the park we go to, all sorts of breeds, but they've been playing with Luka for a while now and you'd swear they all had husky in em! They've picked up every move of his and now he gets it from them just as much! Theres this one anatolian shepherd who brings him down from his tail, if he can do it quick enough, he jumps to the side, lets her run past and brings her down from the throat, as riley said, its amazing to watch them play - especially because you see how they would tackle prey in the wild. I could watch for hours...

Alindaris wrote:

Ha, I have so much to learn about huskies!
Other owners are either great about it and laugh, or the more common reaction: they fret and ask for their dog to come to them and get away from my dog. :-\ There's just no explaining that my dog just plays that way. Maybe making doggie play dates is a better approach than randomly going to the dog park.
Thanks for the reassurance, everyone! I'll just have to associate with owners who understand.
Deanna

Thats exactly what you need to do, stay in contact with those that he plays well with and go down to the park at the same times, thats what we do!

That lab mix and Appa have been playing since they were both 5 months old. She dishes it out just as hard as Appa now, except he's bigger and has more weight to throw around. She rough-houses like a Mal though. That's for sure.

Even my 11 week old husky plays this way, and so does the lab I worried at first but if the lab gets too rough the husky runs under a table lol.

Got a video. He's being rather quiet, but I love that he won't even let her stand up.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=1933134494154

This is one of the mild "rough" play between my 2 huskies. Like rileyflorence's pic, my boy loves to attack the neck and leg area to wrestle the other dog down.

And he is so smart enough to take on puppies and small/med breed dogs. Never once i see my boy takes on a dog bigger size than him.

Totally normal play style, you may find certain breeds play similarly. I've found that Boxers in general have the same play style as my sibe but are just a bit less vocal. I love finding Rhodesian Ridgebacks at the dog park because they can almost outrun my sibe and really give him a good workout and although they don't play as rough they seem to tolerate it well or take off running for a game of chase when it's too much.

I hate finding pits, GSD's, and border collies at the park when I go, generally their play style doesn't match and it can cause some unwanted friction between them and my sibe. But c'est la vie.

GSD are useless at the dog park. Appa never has fun with them.