Things Owners Should Know
We’ve talked about play in
previous webinars and articles, including how to distinguish social play
between individuals from true conflict, what characterizes healthy play, and
how play opportunities can be used as a technique to work with aggression and
fear related problems.
In our experience, many dog owners have questions as well
as misconceptions about play. Many of
these will be the subject of this Biscuit series.
In this first Biscuit we’ll talk about what play is,
different types of play and why behaviorists believe play to be important.
In our dictionary of animal behavior terms, we found
numerous definitions for play. Two we
thought were most relevant for our purposes are:
1. “A set of pleasurable activities, frequently but not
always social in nature, that imitate the serious activities of life without
consuming serious goals” (E.O. Wilson 1975) and 2. “Any behavior that involves
probing, manipulation, experimentation, learning, and the control of one’s own
body as well as the behavior of others, and that also essentially serves the
function of developing and perfecting future adaptive responses to the physical
and social environment” (K. Lorenz 1950).
So play is fun, it doesn’t satisfy an immediate goal, and
it’s made up of a jumble of movements and postures from different kinds of
behavior, such as stalking prey, courtship and fighting.
Behaviorist Robert Fagan, who spent most of his career
studying play holds there are three forms of basic play: creative
improvisation, play-fighting (social play), and object manipulation (object
play).
Some research suggests that social play can help to
strengthen social bonds between people and dogs. We can’t be sure, but suspect
that social play may also teach the dog how to communicate more effectively
with people and other animals. Various kinds of play may help develop strength,
agility and physical skills in dogs.
The AKC just released results of a survey about
activities people enjoy doing with their dogs.
Forty-one percent say they play outside, 32 % take their dogs for daily
walks, 7% engage in some type of competitive dog sport, 14% engage in indoor
exercise, and 5% take their dogs to dog parks.
So people engage in a wide variety of activities with
their dogs, with outside social play and walks topping the list.
This brings up the question of what activities constitute
play. Is taking a dog for a walk
play? When a dog participates in certain
dog sports such as agility and flyball, is he playing or working? What about
manipulating objects (that we call toys) to get access to food? Is this play or foraging/food getting
behavior? Each of these could be play if
the dog seems to be having fun.
Can a dog’s behavioral needs for play be met by taking
him on lots of walks but never playing with toys? Owners have told us their dogs have a HUGE
back yard to run around in so they don’t really need to go for walks. Or that there are all kinds of toys lying in
the house and around the yard, but their dogs never play with them so therefore
they don’t like to play. It’s important
for owners to learn what kinds of play their dog seems to like and to adapt the
play to the dog’s needs.
So what do we tell clients about play?
• It’s
hard to define but we can usually recognize it when we see it.
It seems to not have an immediate function, it’s fun and it’s made up of a mixture of
different kinds of behavior.
• Sick
and stressed animals seldom play, so if your dog stops playing,
look for possible medical or behavioral problems.
• There
are different kinds of play – play with objects like toys, play
with others (social play) and creative improvisation,
usually a form of solitary play like running laps around the backyard.
• Dogs
differ in their interest in play. Some like all kinds of play,
some only like a
few or one kind (like tug or fetch games) and some don’t really seem to like
formal play.
• It’s
normal for play to decline with age, with older dogs playing
less than younger dogs.
• We
don’t know if dogs need to play to be behaviorally healthy, but
they do need exercise, mental stimulation and pleasant
social contact.
Different kinds of play can often satisfy these needs.
Have a great rest of your week!
Reprinted with permission of BEN networks.
