[Dailydrool] Play Studies

[saraberry at aol.com]

My guess, and this is just a guess, is that people who acquire a basset do not get the dog primarily for human-dog playtime.  So the bassets generally don't play with things like balls, toys, tugs, etc., because we don't do that with them consistently to build up play motivation when they are young.

If you go to the basset agility list, you will find a lot of bassets who have strong play skills with humans because to train for a sport like agility, you can use that play motivation to get good performance, which is partly why anyone would study play with humans and break it down by breed.

If you have young bassets or a basset who say, likes socks, which many seem to love to find and carry around, probably due to scent, then you can teach them games with the sock.  You can do tug, you can do retrieves, you can do find its, you can do keep away, catch in the air games, drag it on the ground tied to a rope, etc.  Then you can use these games instead of food to reward for things like attention to you, loose leash walking, sit/down stays, etc.

I am also now going to teach all my puppies to play with at least one item interactively with a human so that can be used for training in their new home.

Best*

Sara Watson, CTC
Bluefence Bassets
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