Dogs playing: Episode 29

[@esthers7668]

❤love these babies❤

[@mrvoodoo5498]

Long post sorry. I have an 8 year old parsons terrier cross rescue dog. I am his 8 or 9th owner/ final owner. We have a great like. He can be at times very reactive with other dogs (larger male,usually). Other times He is very chilled with females or smaller dogs even if them attack him,he wont retaliate if they not much of a threat. He has enjoyed These videos so much. 90 % of runtime he wants to join in with the games 10% or less he is concerned when it looks like it might get rough or looks like a dog is getting a lill bullied he will have a bark. and I think its teaching him that big boisterious strange male dogs may not be trying to eat him. (he was attacked by an american bulldog xl in past and was lucky to survive.) Dogs are great souls, just dont even back them into a corner. Kudos to the people who looks after These dogs looks like you do a fine job and socialise them well,something my dog didnt really get much of before.

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

Hi, thanks for sharing that! I'm really glad your dog is getting so much out of these videos. His reactivity makes a lot of sense, given how badly he was hurt by a larger dog. It's great that he's now able to experience well behaved large dogs (in a safe environment at home). My hope is that lots of dogs learn about socialization by watching these.

[@missFrill]

my dogs love watching this on the big screen .....

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

Awesome!

[@TheEllsworth8]

1:01 "Mamas"....Be still, my heart!

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

Mamas is a great dog. She got adopted around the end of May, about 6 weeks after this video was recorded. I've thought about doing a "Where are they now?" video with "best of" footage from all the previous videos, maybe for the 100th episode. Lots of happy stories, a few sad stories. One story that was in the news was for a dog that was in the shelter but not in the playgroups: Mor'du was adopted to a home in another part of town, ran away and a week later showed up back at the shelter (7 miles away) just trotting through the parking lot and down the sidewalk towards his old kennel. He was brought back to his adopted home where he ran away again, but this time he didn't return anywhere. Four months later he was captured by some diligent volunteers who focus on capturing dogs. He was brought back to the shelter and is now in a foster home.

[@TheEllsworth8]

@@DogPlaygroupStories Thanks for the update! I'm glad she found a home. I love your videos - keep up the great work. :)

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

Thanks!

[@nunyabiz44]

Great video!!! Love that the pups are enjoying themselves!!

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

Thanks! They're selected based on whether they enjoy being in the playgroup, which is based on the evaluations of the Behavior Team. Some dogs are somewhat fearful but end up having fun. Some dogs are just unable to socialize with other dogs and they don't attend.

[@koloki7880]

I know this is months late but I must say CHUCKY is the dog every playgroup needs . He is scanning every other dogs energy & as soon as the energy get close to unacceptable he corrects it quick. He’s not aggressive or rude about it in any way. He simply confronts the issue has a little dog discussion then says to them…. Look this is how you play nice follow me . I think he’s the DADDY of all the pups ! Regardless of age ! He did amazing ! 💜❤️💜

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

Your comment isn't late at all. Chucky is still at the shelter and needs to find a home within days, unfortunately. This shelter is very successful at being a no-kill shelter and Chucky is well known, so I suspect he'll find a home or rescue. Although he does very well with other dogs and has been a playgroup rock star, he's actually very difficult for people to work with. For the past year I've been walking dogs and videoing playgroups and I've been amazed at how different dogs can be in the two environments. There are a lot of very sad stories at animal shelters. Here's the statement from Chucky's advocate within the shelter: "I've been Chucky's advocate for quite some time now and am so fond of him. He has a very innocent, eager- to- please quality about him and really needs a savvy person to guide him. Chucky has spent so much of his young life in the shelter system and sadly, the shelter is now where he feels most safe and secure. He'll need some real decompression time and a patient person to help him get his bearings out in "the real world"- but I do see a bright future for him in the right home. Chucky has had a couple of false starts in homes where his needs weren't understood. His last brief adoption failed because was almost immediately introduced to new people, places and situations after leaving the shelter. This was a sensory overload for him- the opposite of what Chucky needs. Chucky is smart, sensitive, playful, and goofy- a really special dog that needs someone to see how much potential he has. He's a big old lap puppy that loves with his whole heart and deserves a happily ever after."

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

UPDATE: Lucy's Hope Sanctuary & Rescue is planning to rescue Chucky. "Chucky has a home lined up through our rescue, and will be having his dog intro on Sunday. If all goes well, he will be going home."

[@bhavikasawlani1450]

@@DogPlaygroupStories S#Wswwwz*²2½a2wwww2

[@zzzxxxmmhhhkkk5004]

سفخث180ةر ساحة سيكون 😄😄😃😃😢😂☺☺😇💖💚💕

[@cmhernandez91]

Cute babies😍😍

[@JVTRUTH]

Do you every worry that a leash might get caught or wrapped around a leg and possibly break it?

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

The leashes do get caught in things sometimes. Dogs do get tangled up less often. We've never seen any serious issue with that over the past 4-5 years and playgroups every day. On the other hand, we've seen serious issues with altercations between dogs where the leashes are necessary to separate dogs quickly. We recently discovered that a dog who seemed to have ideal playgroup behavior ended up being conflict driven and jumped into a fight, so even that dog needed to have a leash and we didn't know it beforehand.

[@JVTRUTH]

@@DogPlaygroupStories excellent point!👍🏼

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

A lot of this stuff was learned from experience with thousands of dogs over the years. There's a group called Dogs Playing for Life who pioneered shelter dog playgroups and they work with us and other shelters to allow dogs to interact safely and gain good social skiils and keep them mentally and physically healthy.

[@starbeatz1174]

they look so cute and adorable and happy together and are they available for adoption?

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

They have so much fun in playgroup. Even the dogs that stay off to the side and just watch are having way more fun than sitting in their kennel (and they often start playing after a few days in playgroup). Yes, the dogs in the video are available for adoption. The description contains links for all the highlighted dogs to the dog's adoption web page. The web page contains info about the dog such as age, when they arrived at the shelter, weight, etc. If the link shows the dog is no longer in the database, it means they've already been adopted.

[@Montagens270]

continue plis

[@tebrazepam]

Why not remove their leashes?

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

This comes up every now and then in the comments.... The dogs have leashes (drag lines) so that it's easy to separate them if there's an altercation between dogs or for the handler to simply get the dog to remove it from the playgroup. If dogs start fighting, a big risk is when other dogs jump in and attack one of the dogs (conflict driven). It can get very scary and dangerous very quickly. Lots of people nearby are trained and ready to run to the play yard and help separate all the dogs. It's also dangerous to get near their mouths if they're fighting. So having a leash makes it safer and easier to get them apart, even if someone needs to use a bite stick to pry open their mouth when they're latched onto another dog. If a dog consistently shows a certain set of behaviors, then the handler can remove their leash, but we have so many dogs, so few handlers, and limited time, so almost all the dogs keep their leashes on. I've started advocating for removing the leashes on any 3-legged dogs so they won't trip, but it's entirely up to the handler whether or not to remove the leash.

[@rnava5882]

Where are u located?

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

All the videos you see are in Tucson, Arizona, USA. The shelter is Pima Animal Care Center, which is considered to be one of the better shelters in the US.

[@Montagens270]

cuteee

[@enriquerealperez1575]

Why laces? Ridiculous

[@DogPlaygroupStories]

@enriquerealperez1575 These are professional dog handlers who handle thousands of animal shelter dogs from all kinds of backgrounds (abuse and neglect), trained by seasoned professionals using knowledge from across hundreds of shelters that has been developed over the course of several years. If a situation looks ridiculous to a casual observer yet experts are still doing it, there's probably good reasons for doing it. A lot of bad things can happen in the yard, not just between two dogs but between lots of dogs. Dogs can be conflict driven and jump into a fight unexpectedly. We often don't know which dogs will do that because they came in as strays and we don't know their background. In that situation the dogs are extremely agitated and can very easily redirect and bite a person or some other dog. The handler will call in people from other parts of the shelter who run into the yard and start grabbing leashes and tying dogs off to the various tie-off places in the yard. Getting anywhere near that dog's mouth when they're very emotional and frightened/angry could very easily cause you to get bit. A bite means that dog goes into rabies observation for 10 days and gets a bite record, making them much more difficult to get them adopted. It also doesn't feel good when you get bit. You won't ever see a fight like that in these videos. They don't happen often, but they do happen. After you experience it, the leashes stop looking ridiculous.