Playbows

[JudyN]

Are playbows always benign? Or can there be an element of 'Come on then if you think you're hard enough, then I'll show you...'?

The situation I have in mind was Jasper meeting a small female lurcher and a male terrier who also hadn't met before. The lurcher and the terrier started playing, quite rowdily, and Jasper got in between them (fun police?), playbowed to the terrier, reared up and put his paws on it and chased it. They disappeared and when they reappeared the terrier was chasing Jasper and the lurcher was running along behind

All was fine, the smaller dogs were a little wary of Jasper's size but happy to come back for more, though I do worry about the risk of accidental injury with his habit of putting paws on other dogs. I know lurchers can 'play rough' but I'm always on the lookout for Jasper's play to tip into bullying and I wondered to what extent I could trust a playbow to mean that his intent was benign even if he did get too OTT.

Could he even be distracting the terrier so it wouldn't pester his new girlfriend lurcher?

[MPbandmom]

I sometimes wonder if Sky's play bows are a desire to play or a desire to appear non threatening. But as I would rather see her do a play bow than her more common response towards other dogs, I will at least take it that it is much less likely that grumpy words will be exchanged.

[Erica]

I've definitely seen some stiff play bows that were not a part of very comfortable, benign interactions. When Delta and Jax meet nowadays, it starts with stiff play bows, goes on to head-over-back interactions, then humping. It's not a "good" interaction, though nothing obviously bad happens. I just try to keep them separate.

Interested in further speculation or any knowledge about this!

We do have a golden puppy in one of the classes who always goes to the most rowdy playmates and gets in between them and calms the play down from frantic growly wrestling (the rowdy ones are siblings) to more normal puppy play.

[JudyN]

I've come to the conclusion that dogs' interactions can be as finely nuanced and occasionally contradictory as those of humans

I do tend to let them get on with it and 'sort themselves out' when I can because I think part of the behaviour is them learning about the other and thus knowing what their relationship will be. But I'm watching the other dog and owner like a hawk for signs that they're uncomfortable. A typical interaction is Jasper saying 'I'm the big boy round here - got that?' or 'Don't try that on with me, mate,' the other dog saying 'Sure, whatever,' and having reached an understanding they either (rarely) play according to the rules they've established or happily ignore each other. It's when it looks like it's tipping over to bullying rather than sorting out what's what or mutual wrestling I put a stop to it - or when the size difference means it's a really bad idea. Or when I can see J is getting a bit too pumped up.

[Nettle]

Your instincts are generally sound, and it IS fascinating about nuances. Just as some people are socially less aware of subtleties of body-language and, in our case, speech, so not every dog is as 'ept' (if that were only a word! ) as the norm. In some ways, it's a bit like "Don't put me in an escalating situation because I might just forget my manners....."

Nobody ever had an injured dog by breaking up interaction before it got out of hand.