There are two things that are important to understand about nature: First, nature is extremely efficient. Outside of the comfort of human households, calories are not easy to come by. This is especially true for dogs. Ecologists have estimated that among free-ranging populations of dogs, only about 4 to 6% of puppies born in the wild survive. The vast majority of those who don’t make it die of starvation.
Second, we must remember that the evolutionary process not only selects for physical attributes to make a species better fit for survival, but the same pressures select for behavioral traits to make them better adapted as well. In other words, behaviors are maintained and changed over time based on their value for helping the species survive.
What you can infer from these two facts is that if a species performs a regular pattern of behavior, you can bet that there’s a reason for it. Nature is efficient. Nature doesn’t waste calories.
Play is no exception to this rule. Ethologists, biologists and psychologists have long understood that play serves valuable functions in the life of animals. Some of these functions are more obvious than others. For instance, most of us understand that play helps individuals to develop and maintain cooperative relationships. Let’s take a look at some of the other functions of play, especially the games we play with our dogs, why they matter, and why it is important to be conscientious of our games, especially if you are struggling with problem behavior.
Play – A Closer Look
Generally speaking the functions of play can be put into two categories:
1. Developing and maintaining aspects of relationships, and
2. Developing and building confidence in skills to be applied later in life.
Play and Relatonships
Through co-evolution dogs and humans have developed a rich repertoire of play. These playful interactions may be one of the most profound and important aspects of how we develop inter-species relationships that are based on mutual trust, cooperation, and respect.
The environment of play provides a safe place for each individual to explore each other’s personalities, test boundaries, and guage one’s relative status within a group.
Through playful sparring with each other, dogs learn to practice appropriate self-restraint, and to tolerate others. They learn crucial communication skills, such as how to let another dog know when they’ve had enough and how to respond appropriately when another dog communicates their own limits in return.
Perhaps however, one of the most important functions of play is for animals to experiment with various social behaviors, and to test and infer their relative status within a social group. In other words, through play, animals discover who is fastest, strongest, most confident, most assertive etc.
In fact, in their groundbreaking study, Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, Scott and Fuller found that through play and competition over resources, social hierarchies become progressively more stable among littermates between 11-17 weeks of age.
In an earlier study, W. T. James (1949 Dominant and Submissive Behavior in Puppies as indicated by food intake. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 75: 33-43 ) found that a generally stable social hierarchy developed in most litters of puppies by 12 weeks of age.
Although some professionals like to argue about the nature of social hierarchies in dogs, in the scientific community there is wide spread agreement that competitive play serves a crucial function, and can leave a lasting impression of a dogs relative social status.
There is a caveat here: In nature, competitive play only occurs between relative equals. Steven Lindsey in Volume 2 of the handbook of applied dog training and behavior highlights this point:
“Excessive or unstructured competitive play may blur important social boundaries and set into action a chain of events and lasting effects that may predispose puppies to exhibit more problematic behavior as adults.”
In fact, when I met renowned biologist and expert on Wolf behavior Dr. Jason Badridze, I asked him, “Do the alpha wolves play with subordinate wolves in the same manner that the subordinates play with each other?” His answer is paraphrased as follows:
“When the puppies are very young, mating pairs, or alphas will play with them. But, it is more that the puppies use the bodies of the Alphas as a playground. However, once the young wolves reach adolescence, the mating pair no longer play with them in the same way that they play with each other.”
When I followed up my question inquiring why, his response was:
“The act of engaging in such play would in it’s self bring into question their status.”
So what does this mean for us and our dogs?
We need to be mindful about playing games such as vigorous tug of war or aggressive roughhousing with our dogs. If you have a passive, easy-going dog that does not challenge you and is not displaying behavior problems, then these games may not be an issue at all. However, If your dog is more assertive by nature, or you are struggling with behavioral problems, especially aggression, you may want to rethink whether playing these games at all is a good idea. Or if you are going to play them, the games need to be performed intentionally and constructively, with appropriate rules, constraints, and inhibitions built into the game.
There is of course a flipside to this problem. During healthy play, dogs are more willing to switch between dominant and submissive roles as part of the game. This can provide a safe staging ground for an owner to encourage submissiveness and demonstrate to the dog the benefits of taking on a cooperative and submissive role by offering reinforcement during these moments. Again, this requires conscientious effort on the part of the owner, and an understanding that the game is not simply a game but serves a crucial function in the development of their relationship and lifestyle with their dog.
At my training center when I meet a client and dog who are displaying signs of hierarchical confusion within the home, I assess each case on an individual basis. Whenever possible, if I feel the client is physically capable, and invested enough in the process, I find it beneficial to teach them how to play competitive games in a way that is constructive rather than destructive to their relationship. However, I find that in many cases involving average dog owners, who have limited time and energy to invest in dog training, it is best to have them cease playing all competitive games while we work to remedy the imbalance in their relationship.
So, to summarize, structured and conscious play is one of the most valuable things we can do with our dogs. Play, is the foundation on which we can develop healthy cooperative and affiliative relationships. However, not all play is constructive to our relationships. If you suspect that the hierarchy in your home is out of balance, then you may want to look closely at any competitive games that you play with your dog.
Play as Skill-Building
As was mentioned earlier, the development of social relationships is only one function of play. Many animals utilize play to develop crucial skills that will be applied in more serious contexts later in life. For instance, in the case of canids, wolf biologists have noted that when young wolves are wrestling with and chasing each other in play, they target the same areas of the body that adult wolves target on their prey. From this we can deduce that play serves as an important function in the development of predatory skills that will be applied when the young wolves become fully formed and join their older pack members on a hunt.
Although there are likely dozens of individual skills that dogs learn during play, there are two primary categories of skills that we find often bleed over into every day life and contribute to behavior problems for many of our clients. Those two skill categories are, predatory behavior, and combat skills.
I am regularly surprised by how many dog owners are unaware of the predatory nature of the games they are playing with their dogs. To keep things simple, here is a breakdown of some of the common games we play and their component predatory skills.
Chasing and catching a ball translates to chasing pray, and a grab-bite. Tug-of-war is a kill-bite/shake. Tearing apart stuffed toys is dissection. And squeaky toys represent a dying animal.
While it is natural for dogs to express these traits in certain contexts, there is a difference between a dog chasing a squirrel on their own in your backyard, and me routinely encouraging and reinforcing chase behavior with my dog. In other words it is unrealistic to expect our dogs to never display these skills, but that does not mean that we need to strengthen and encourage them.
Again, this does not mean that I think it is always bad to play ball with a dog, but if your dog is displaying problematic patterns of behavior, it is worth investigating whether any of those patterns are related to the predatory skills that your dog is practicing during play and whether we can alter our game, in order to ensure that the dog is learning skills that serve us, rather than work against us.
I think it would be helpful here to give some tangible examples of what I mean. My dog Lobo has a very strong prey drive. Early in his life, when we would go for off leash walks in the woods, it was virtually impossible to stop him if he started chasing a deer, even with the aid of an electronic collar. One thing that is important to know about Lobo, is that I purchased him at 14 months, and he was raised in Holland in a working dog kennel in preparation to be a working dog for border patrol. In these types of working dog programs, when the dogs are young they build up their drive as much as possible, and add as little control and obedience as they can. This way, when the dogs are sent off to a specific department for work, the agencies can be assured of the dog’s working desire and intensity while also having a blank slate upon which to instill their own training procedures for tactical purposes. As you may be able to guess at this point, not only was it extremely difficult to call Lobo off of a deer in the woods, but it was also extremely difficult to call him mid chase off of a tennis ball. Additionally, at the time of this writing, I have two children. My son is 3 1/2, and my daughter is 15 months. As you can imagine, my children play with balls of various shapes and sizes. With Lobo’s intensity, if he were allowed to impulsively chase balls anytime he saw one move, it would be extremely dangerous to have him around my children when they are playing, because they regularly bounce balls in front of themselves and over their heads. I can tell you from my early experience with Lobo, that left to his own devices he would plow right through my children to get to a ball.
So, I still play ball with Lobo regularly, but I play the game mindfully and use the game to teach him the skills that he needs to succeed in the world. First of all, when we play ball, Lobo is not allowed to chase the ball unless I give a specific cue. I use the signal “Get it“. Importantly, I do not make this dependent on Lobo being in a specific command, such as a sit or a down, when I throw the ball. This means he is at liberty and free to move around, but when I throw the ball, he cannot chase it until I give the signal. This way, I don’t have to worry about him impulsively chasing a ball that my children are playing with and accidentally hurting them in the process.
Additionally, after I give him the signal to chase the ball, I regularly practice calling him back to me mid-chase. Because we regularly practice this skill, I no longer have any problems with him chasing deer in the woods. So, rather than avoiding the game, I have turned it into a constructive practice that makes him better adapted to be successful in our lives.
Here’s another example. As a high-energy dog, Lobo needs daily exercise. One of the tools I use to keep him fulfilled is called a Slat Mill. A slatt mill is a non-motorized, dog-powered treadmill. Meaning the dog can go as fast or slow as they want to. In order to motivate Lobo to run fast and get a good workout, I use a tug toy. This puts Lobo in a very predatory, very aroused, and very assertive state. So, in order to keep the game productive, I insert a lot of impulse control. I make Lobo wait until signaled before he can start running, and I also have him regularly practice stopping on my signal without being given the opportunity to bite.
Perhaps most importantly, when he is running, chasing, and biting, I stay very emotionally neutral. It is when he is calm and waiting that I insert my praise and affection. I don’t want Lobo to think that the purpose of this activity is that I want him to be more predatory, more intense, and more assertive. The running and biting part is for his fulfillment. The part of the game that makes me happy is the calm, the self control, and the respect.
There is one last aspect of this activity that also has significant value. When young dogs play, they develop the ability to switch back and forth between different behavior patterns or drives. For Instance, they transition smoothly from prey behavior – chasing each other around, to social behavior, licking, affection, dominance rituals, etc. When I ask Lobo to stop on the slat mill, and I begin sharing affection with him, he takes his focus off the toy, his gaze relaxes, and he brings his focus to the contact between the two of us. This is something that I very intentionally nurture. He is practicing the skill of switching from prey drive to social drive. A real-world application of this would be taking a dog for a walk and then encountering a rabbit or squirrel. Many people caught in this situation are merely controlling their dog’s body or physical position while their focus, intensity, and intention remain on the critter. When I call my dog off of prey, I want him to return to me fully, both physically and mentally.
Skills related to hunting are not the only essential life skills that young canines develop during play. Most of us are sheltered from understanding some of these needs because we only get to observe dogs that are raised in the security of a nice home with a fenced yard. However, the majority of dogs on earth are free-ranging dogs, meaning they don’t live inside homes as pets. As these dogs mature, it’s not uncommon for them to have to use aggression to defend their territory and other crucial resources, including food, mating privileges, and their status among other nearby dogs. Through rough-housing and wrestling with their littermates, young canids develop skills and confidence for physical competition and even combat.
There is a reason that when raising young dogs for police and protection work, the handlers and trainers play a lot of tug games, and at a very early age, they begin to teach the young dogs to target certain body parts during play. Doing this helps to ensure that as the young dogs grow, they will be very confident engaging in physical competition and conflict with humans.
Again, the skills learned and practiced during play will be put into action in the real world. So, if you engage in a lot of physical roughhousing with your dog and allow them to play bite your arms, legs, and other body parts, then you need to be aware of how this translates into real-life application. For instance, if your dog is a little under-socialized, and they are confronted with a human trying to pet them, and your dog is unsure about how they are supposed to cope with the situation, they are likely to draw on the skills they have been developing during play. The dog practicing physical combat and grabbing human body parts during play is more likely to bite when in this predicament. In fact, in a study titled” The establishment of dominance relationships in a dog pack and it’s relevance for the man-dog relationship.” the authors noted that this type of rough play might
“Increase a dogs’s aggressive readiness and confidence to act out aggressively toward humans.”
To put it simply, the dog who has engaged in this type of rough play is more prepared to bite, whereas the dog who has not practiced and gained confidence in combat through play may be more hesitant to engage physically with a human, giving you more opportunity to intervene and redirect the dog’s behavior before an incident occurs.
Again, I must stress that if you own a relatively submissive dog who is well-socialized, confident, and comfortable around people, then rough play may not present any issue. However, for many of my clients who are strugggling with aggression, this connection between play and real life cannot be ignored.
Patterns of Behavior
Some connections between play and problem behavior are not as easily recognized. For instance, one of the most common behavior problems we treat is what is commonly referred to as leash reactivity. Leash-reactive dogs are dogs who, when out on walks, come completely unhinged at the sight of another person or, more commonly other dogs. We call this leash reactivity because many dogs only display this behavior when on leash and will behave differently when off-leash.
Particularly in the case of reactivity toward other dogs, the preparatory or loading phase of their behavior is virtually indistinguishable from the preparatory stages of predation.
The full predatory sequence for wild canids is orient > stalk > chase > grab bite > kill bite > dissect > consume. In the case of leash reactivity toward dogs, the orient and stalk phases are essentially the same.
This is somewhat odd since leash reactivity most commonly stems from defense drive, which generally has a very different sequence and observable motor patterns than prey drive. But, for whatever reason, this crossover of motor patterns occurs.
In my work rehabilitating aggressive dogs, I regularly see a correlation that dogs who display this type of impulsive reactivity also do not demonstrate any impulse control during their predatory games such as chasing a ball.
I am not suggesting that chasing a ball created the reactivity. However, if your dog is leash reactive and you play ball without adding any control or inhibition, as I described with my dog Lobo, then you may be strengthening the exact same patterns of behavior that you are struggling to control on the walk.
Moreover, although chasing the ball may not have caused the reactivity, recognizing this connection allows us to utilize the game constructively to teach the dog the skills they will need to succeed on the walk. In other words, by teaching your dog to wait after the ball is thrown until given a signal and how to orient back to you rather than fixating on the thrown object, we may be able to re-wire the brain’s neuropathways in such a way that enhances the dog’s ability to control themselves on a walk when they see another dog.
Through ample scientific research, we now know that the brain, like any muscle, can be strengthened and molded. The areas of the brain that are most often used will become the default across a variety of contexts. We also know that we can change our brains’ physical structure through training such as meditation. Dogs are no different, and if we regularly practice impulsive, uninhibited predation and combat, we run a high risk of those patterns bleeding over into other areas of our lives.
Tyler Muto
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