Dog Obedience Classes Sydney: Is Your Dog Having Too Much Free Play?

Eazy Dog Training Sydney

Dog Obedience Class Sydney: Is Your Dog Having Too Much Free Play?

Too much free play is a common and well-known issue amongst dog trainers all around the world. But what does it mean? Dogs that have too much uncontrolled playtime with other dogs in parks, dog daycares or on group walks start to get over-excited about other dogs. If a dog learns to see strange dogs as nothing but playmates, it’s going to cause problems due to increasing excitement and frustration in those situations where the dog’s expectations aren’t met. After all, there will be situations when playtime is not welcomed by another dog.

As a trainer, I’ve seen this happen many times: previously friendly dogs ‘all of a sudden’ turn aggressive towards other dogs and will not take ‘no’ for an answer when it comes to rough play. However, the change is never sudden or happen over-night, most owners simply ignore the early signs of over-excitement and the escalation of this problem and start correcting it when it’s at it’s worst. In my dog obedience class in Sydney, dogs learn to associate other dogs with focus and calmness, which is very important for all dogs to learn. Other dogs should never be the main entertainment for dogs.

Why is over-excitement a problem?

Dog’s have very little impulse control, that’s one thing we love about them. They get easily excited and show it very clearly. Dogs must be taught to control their impulses, and a dog park is not an environment for this. It’s a place where dogs usually have very little control from their owners and it’s often a meeting place for similar minded dog owners: the ones that think dogs can sort it out on their own and naturally know how to behave and learn from each other. This is based on thinking that dog parks and socialisation with strangers is natural for dogs, which it isn’t! Dog parks aren’t natural at all, dogs are pack animals and wouldn’t welcome strangers without proper socialisation done by us. And this is the huge problem in this kind of thinking.

Dog parks are full of over-excited dogs whose lives revolve around playtime with other dogs, there’s always a few anti-social/reactive/aggressive/timid ones (owners thinking they will be told off by others and therefore will learn not to show aggression or get used to other dogs eventually) and there’s always a bully who’s more focused on chasing the others than playing (exhibiting prey-drive, not playing). I know this from my own experience, I used to be a dog park person. So when you think about it, it’s not a great environment for dogs to learn good habits and self-control.

Over-excitement is often seen as funny, however, it easily escalates to frustration when a dog can not play and aggression when they start getting told off by other dogs due to their poor manners caused by the over-excitement. Playing is only playing if it’s mutual! Over-excitement often causes dogs to start ignoring the other dogs’ signals ending up in fights. This is the problem of too much free play!

Teach your dog calm manners and polite meeting manners in my dog obedience classes in Sydney!