Socialising - week 3 of school

Still on week 3 only the 2 bigger puppies were allowed off lead together to play.

The interesting thing for this study is that Cetta found the other puppy rather daunting as she plays often by bouncing at another dog throwing her front paws in the air and striking out. She is not being at all aggressive, it is just her way of playing but it is very confronting for the other pups.

In the following video you will see her attempt to climb all over Cetta, positioning herself on top of Cetta and Cetta responds by growling, pushing her off, then quickly moves away. What is really interesting is that the lady running the class then lifts a water spray bottle and announces that she has this on hand (to everyone else's approval).

In reality, if you watch the video closely (in the first minute of the video), the behaviour by both puppies was perfectly normal for their breeds and age. One pup takes the friendship too far for comfort of the other, that pup let's the first pup know it, and they both move off to play better. It's a pity this wasn't really explained to the class and observation drawn to the behaviours instead of the threat of a water bottle, which would only have disrupted the behaviour instead of observing how they worked it out themselves.

A little later in the second minute of video the pup jumps over the top of Cetta again, but this time she responds by play bowing underneath the other pup. Some people are a little concerned, and again unfortunately what was happening was not really explained.

It is also interesting to notice that the maremma pup spends a fair amount of her time walking around the whole room checking out everyone and everything, whilst other pups there really only just play, they don't take much other notice of the rest of their surroundings. This is not an intelligence thing, but a breed difference.

The pups with herding breeds in them concentrate far more on floor level, on things they can get an 'eye' on and follow.

After this off lead play time, the 2 bigger pups were put back on lead and the littler pups let off to play.

I found it so interesting every week that Cetta was far more interested in playing once she was back on lead than when off. Off lead, she seemed to be as interested in checking the room over, saying hello to each person, and then spreading herself around the other puppies. But on lead, it was like she knew they were off and she wasn't and she wanted only now to play with them!

This cattle dog cross pup in the next video took a real liking to her and they had a great time playing, with Cetta ending up trying to imitate some of his antics. Once they were both on lead, they had quite a brilliant time playing together, both puppies learning many important things about socialising with other dogs.