we play fight and they know when i say stop i mean stop.
everyone who plays with my dogs know if they say stop they will stop. and the dogs learnt from a young age if playing tug of war and i say leave or give they have to stop.
as long as you teach them enough is enough then i see no prob's

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We all play fight with the dogs in our house. Anyway I though as pups it teaches them how far they can go - like when they played with their littermates.

I have 3 kids and I can honestly say my dogs have never hurt them while playing rough with them or any other time (oh apart from once when Sid wagged his tail so hard my daughter got a black eye lol)

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"Properly trained, a man can be a dog's best friend."
Corey Ford

my dogs playfight with each other a lot!!!!
i play rough with them both, rottie occassionally gets over excited and jumps and play bites but it never really hurts (just the odd bruise)

ridgeback however, really nice and saft but his claws are always sharp (lots of scratches) and he has a problem knowing where the end of his nose is. unfortunatly this has lead to many hours of pain in the nose, teeth and general face area. hes worth it tho. you can sometimes get away with it if your quick enough. lol

1. cassie is moderately trained will follow basic commands i.e sit, no, paw, laydown but has decided to ingnore everything else
2.We do have young have young children but cassie never tries to play with them like she know who her playmate is.
3. cassie is sometime a liitle bossy but more than anything is nervous

i think if anything the play fighting has built her confidence

I have Golden Retrievers and it is an old fashioned myth that playing tug gives dogs a hard mouth. We play tug with all of ours and they all have very soft mouths and very, very good bite inhibition. The oldest one is trained to the gun and goes out picking up and has never damaged a bird. OH also uses her to retrieve rabbits he shoots and again, they have never been damaged. (as an aside, someone trie dot ell us that feeding her whole rabbits would prevent her being used to pick up as she'd just eat the rabbits..... )

Middle one also being trained to retriever game and has also never damaged anything. Youngest (7 months) is going in the show ring but wil be retrieving when older, so we'll see. All of them can happily carry an egg in their mouths without damaging it though.

As for play fighting...... I have children, the youngest of whom has Downs Syndrome so it is an absolute must that the dogs behave appropriately around the children. We (hubbyand I) play fight with all of the dogs, which can and does include them mouthing us. it is and never will be for one simple reason. The dogs are not allowed to instigate the play fighting and always end it instantly on command, regardless of how excited they get.

i dont play fight with mine as they start pulling my hair so hard it hurts and they do not let go. They dont bite me or anything like that but my hair seems to be like a toy for them
They do play fight with each other

I do play tug with my dogs .... they enjoy it, i enjoy it. and by winning most of the time they maybe see that im the better one hehe

IMO play fighting is an intricate part of interacting with your dog !
If you don't want to interact then go buy a gold fish or a lizard for gods sake

wtf eek: