That type of information is directed toward pet dog owners. For working dogs, tug can be an integral part of their reward system.
I personally wouldn't discourage tug with a pet dog, as long as the game is played by the human's rules, and there are no dominance issues in the relationship. A pet dog who shows dominance related aggression should probably not be tugged with, but whether or not the human plays tug with the dog is not in and of itself going to be THE reason that the dominance issues are occurring. It's generally going to be due to an overall lack of leadership by the human, which should be handled with a multi-pronged approach, part of which may or may not include not playing tug with the dog. I don't think it's possible to make an accurate blanket statement that ALL dogs should or should not play tug.
Don't play tug of war if you ever hope your dog will bring anything to you!
Most important if you want a dog who retrieves items on command.
There should be toys your dog may take from you, and those you keep control of and put away in your toy chest when you decide the game is over.
I have an awesome mobility assistance dog and he loves to retreive litterly anything, hold it, and deliver whatever items right in my lap. He has never played tug of war.
Retrieving games are more fun and everyone will be happy.
Kirk, retreiving and tug of war are two seperate things. My dogs tug, and retreive. If you are doing SchH or personal protection work of any sorts with your dog you can not avoid playing tug.
Playing hard to get on the otherhand is a game I will NEVER play with my dog.
Robert VanCamp Webboard User Reg: 11-28-2001
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Sorry Kirk, thats WRONG!
My dogs play tug with all kinds of toys, they will grab one and run to me to play, will retrieve almost anything and play tug with it. They want to come play with ME. Not tug and run off with the toy, although that happens in the game as well.
Its all in how you play the game. For example two hose game, two ball game. I like hose better because not only can the dog chase and grab it for reward, we can play tug for reward. When thrown the dog will tear after it and tear back. . .to play tug.
Tug of war is a very positive thing if you know how to do it, and in most cases it is positive even if you don't know how to do it. Tug of war isn't bad.
It doesn't reinforce running away, it doesn't reinforce aggression. Reinforcing running away reinforces running away and reinforcing aggression reinforces aggression.
I'll come back to this one tonight when I have time.
That all sounds great. This pup of mine so love to retrieve and loves to bite and tug with me, my 11 and 8 year old, yet she plays SO sweetly (still a tug game) with my 1 yr old.
Seeing this brought up the memories of some articles I read warning about tug games. Thanks for helping me on this one, I surely did not want to take this away from the play time she has with the boys.
BTW: on a previous post I asked about how to train my pup to tell me when she wants to go outside...well...I took the advice of acting like a fool, barking my head off to teach her how to bark....and...now....she won't shut up! :rolleyes: <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
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