My fiance and I just adopted Bisou, a 20 week old 12 pound French Bulldog puppy. She's been with us for a week and a half and loves playing with Shasta, our 5 year old 35 pound shepherd mix. When they play, it's sort of rough for their size difference. Bisou climbs on Shasta's back and Shasta nibbles on Bisou's legs, and there's a lot of grunting, snorting, rolling, and jumping. Usually, if one of them is being a little too rough, a simple "easy" will calm it down a notch. For the most part though, they self-monitor pretty well.
Yesterday, during their play bout when I got home from work, it got too rough for my taste. They often bite each other's necks, pinning each other down and releasing after a couple seconds, and I know this is normal. However, this time, Shasta took a rather large chunk of Bisou's cheek and started dragging her across the floor by it. Bisou didn't yelp, but they both got totally silent with no grunting and Bisou kind of just froze up. She was only dragged about a foot before I thumped Shasta on the shoulder to get her to stop. Bisou came over to me, then went to lay down and chew on a stuffed animal and their play was done until a few hours later.
My fiance freaked out at me saying Shasta did nothing wrong and since Bisou didn't cry for help, she wasn't being hurt. I know that at that moment she wasn't in pain, but I didn't want to encourage that kind of behavior. All of Shasta's life, she has been conditioned to tear apart stuffed animals and hasn't seen much extended play with other dogs. We take her to the dog park, but she's more of an observer. The way she plays with Bisou looks identical to how she plays with her stuffed animals... I'm worried that if we continue to let her drag Bisou across the floor by her face, that one day Shasta will thrash her head back and forth the way she does with her stuffed animals and Bisou will be seriously hurt.
It might be because she's a new dog and she's still young, but seeing her dragged like that terrified me. I've never raised a puppy before, only adult dogs, and I've never had dogs that have needed (in my eyes) play intervention. I understand that she wasn't hurt in that moment, but the way I see it, why should we let that behavior continue and only put a stop to it once someone gets hurt?
Is this safe or normal play? Should I have just let them do their thing? Maybe it's the mommy in me being over protective, but I've never seen dogs do that to each other and it freaked me out.
Yesterday, during their play bout when I got home from work, it got too rough for my taste. They often bite each other's necks, pinning each other down and releasing after a couple seconds, and I know this is normal. However, this time, Shasta took a rather large chunk of Bisou's cheek and started dragging her across the floor by it. Bisou didn't yelp, but they both got totally silent with no grunting and Bisou kind of just froze up. She was only dragged about a foot before I thumped Shasta on the shoulder to get her to stop. Bisou came over to me, then went to lay down and chew on a stuffed animal and their play was done until a few hours later.
My fiance freaked out at me saying Shasta did nothing wrong and since Bisou didn't cry for help, she wasn't being hurt. I know that at that moment she wasn't in pain, but I didn't want to encourage that kind of behavior. All of Shasta's life, she has been conditioned to tear apart stuffed animals and hasn't seen much extended play with other dogs. We take her to the dog park, but she's more of an observer. The way she plays with Bisou looks identical to how she plays with her stuffed animals... I'm worried that if we continue to let her drag Bisou across the floor by her face, that one day Shasta will thrash her head back and forth the way she does with her stuffed animals and Bisou will be seriously hurt.
It might be because she's a new dog and she's still young, but seeing her dragged like that terrified me. I've never raised a puppy before, only adult dogs, and I've never had dogs that have needed (in my eyes) play intervention. I understand that she wasn't hurt in that moment, but the way I see it, why should we let that behavior continue and only put a stop to it once someone gets hurt?
Is this safe or normal play? Should I have just let them do their thing? Maybe it's the mommy in me being over protective, but I've never seen dogs do that to each other and it freaked me out.