Is Group Dog Play Safe?

When I started in dogs, I attended dog parks.

I loved nothing more than watching the dogs play - I had a puppy at the time, and she quickly established herself with a revolving cast of regulars who did a pretty good job of continuing her education in how to be a polite dog.

Were there dog fights? Oh yes. Epic ones. I was lucky for a time.

But by the time she was 8 months old, she had "graduated" into the role of elder sister in the mismatched pack, and in her overenthusiasm for the role started handing out beatings to the younger dogs.

I stopped attending the dog park with her - it wasn't an appropriate venue for her anymore. Too many variables, and at the time I wasn't a trainer and didn't have the skills and language to work with her offleash effectively now that she was a burgeoning adult - a BOSSY one.

After some years of becoming a professional, I learned in the course of my education about Dick Russell's Large Field Socialization - where under the tutelage of a skilled trainer, owner/dog teams would go out into a five acre field and all walk together, one owner per dog, carefully supervised and managed.

I also learned that a huge plethora of other organizations had taken that idea and . . . taken some shortcuts with it. Primarily dog daycares. Plenty of dog trainers as well.

They often call these "socials", and some of them work well when run humbly, with two to four dogs per handler. Some of them were cresting 27 dogs per handler, however. Things get a little hairy when groups are run this way (and this ratio is based off of a real world example described to me by a former employee of one of these outfits).

Group play CAN be operated safely, and it can be quite a lot of fun. But when it goes wrong, it goes BADLY wrong.

The truth is, each time unrelated dogs are introduced to each other, there is an unavoidable level of risk. Dick Russell mitigated this by having a 1:1 handler to dog ratio in his exercises, and taught every handler how to keep things safe. With that level of supervision, the risk is relatively minimal, though never zero.

But many of these organizations are min-maxing profits, which means more dogs per group, less staff per group. This is a recipe for disaster.

I still run some socials in my business, but I am extremely cautious about it. I usually will only mix dogs who express clear and unmistakable friendly gestures for the other dog, and those gestures are reciprocated. I let them play with each other - a 1:2 dog ratio, 1:3 dog ratio at most, which groups never exceeding five dogs in a half acre area. The times that we ever get to five dogs in a group is vanishingly small. If the dogs are indifferent to each other, or uncomfortable, I don't even try. My goal is to keep everything peaceable, and I'd rather a little safe solitude than risking a beloved pet's safety.

So, if you're terribly concerned about your dog "having fun" while they are away, just realise that oftentimes group socials are much more lord-of-the-flies than idyllic puppy playground. It takes a very realistic professional to run them safely, and those are pretty rare these days.

It's often better to prioritize safety over the perception of fun.

If you'd like to learn more about how to read dogs and how to safely manage dog play, give us a call. We can definitely teach you.