Remember to have many safety rules during play, so that everyone has a good time. Take lots of pictures!

Thank you for creating a website like this !!!!

Congratulations on your new puppy. What is his name? Would love to see some pictures of him at play. Do you have pictures of him online?

Hahaha, Marcus sounds like such a fun boy!

But I am curious, how did you train all your dogs to obey play rules?

With my Shiba, I always ask him to do a Sit before I start any game. If he doesn’t do it, I don’t start the game. Then with the flirt pole, I say “Flirt” and start the game. He is only allowed to bite on the toy at the end of the pole. If he bites on the string I non-mark him and ask him to “Leave-It”. If he does not “Leave-It” I just stop playing with him. The game is only fun when the toy is moving around, so stopping play is a very good way to get Sephy to follow the rules.

If he jumps on me or mouths on me in any way, I non-mark him. If he continues, I stop the game and ignore him. If he continues, he goes to time-out.

It depends a lot on the temperament of the individual dog. I am a lot more strict with Sephy because he is more reactive and loses control more easily. My Sibes are a lot more easy going.

As for food guarding or toy guarding, these are some of the things I do with all my dogs -
http://shibashake.com/dog/stop-food-aggression-stop-resource-guarding

I do a lot of hand-feeding, add food to their toys, and help them get food out of their toys. I do a lot of this with them when they are puppies, so that they quickly learn that people coming near them means they get more good stuff.

I also watch puppy like a hawk when we are out on walks so that she doesn’t eat anything she shouldn’t eat. In this way, I don’t have to go in and get the stuff out of her mouth. With Sephy, I did a lot of mouth object removal, and he started guarding his stuff as a result. Luckily, I caught it early, and made sure I stopped him before he got the things in his mouth.

In this case, prevention is much much better than cure.

Also, if he tries to get unsanctioned stuff off the ground I tell him to Drop-It, if he does not, I end the walk. He likes his walks, so ending the walk is a really good deterrent. Of course if he does get something dangerous in his mouth I will go in there and remove it, but I try my hardest to keep that to a minimum.

I also do a lot of object exchanges and food exercises with him.

Big hugs to Marcus and a nice big cookie!

Another dilemma I’m facing is, I need to leave a lot of toys around so Marcus will chew on them instead of the furniture. But if toys are left around left and right, he will go grab one whenever without getting permission from me first, so that some times carries into play time. So should I leave the toys out or not?

Also, what exercises do you do to prevent resource guarding? Especially since I feel like Marcus may get cautious over me taking things since he loves to snatch up trash on walks (he’s a quick one!) and some times I need to pry it out to avoid an obstruction.

He has an outside football that he is constantly throwing at our feet to play. He’s starting to try to jump and catch it as well. He is pretty good at catching round balls on a bounce so I’m sure in due time he will learn to catch the football. I think come summertime, we will introduce a Frisbee to him. That is a great idea.

I would love to enroll him in a agility or other play sport class however he needs two sessions of obedience to do so and while he’s doing OK in class, he’s just not that interested. Hopefully he can make it! Fortunately the class is not pass/fail!

My Shiba is totally uninterested in fetching.

He gets really obsessed about the water hose game though. In the beginning he would try to pull the hose out himself, and he punctured the hose in a few places. What worked well for him is to make sure he follows rules and stays semi-calm before I start the game.

Also, I would only play the game with him very occasionally – when he is in need of a bath or when it is really hot outside.

if I ignore him, he tosses toys at the cat expecting the cat to play…fat chance!!!

LOL!

One thing that may help is to put your Shiba on a brief time-out every time he starts throwing toys at the cat. It may also help to stop playing fetch for a while, and play other games with him so he doesn’t just fixate on one thing.

My guy likes the flirt pole a lot and hunting lizards during our walks.

Does he like playing with other dogs? I only do small one-on-one supervised play sessions with my Shiba but he really enjoys those.

It is very amazing to have a Shiba that fetches though. Once you break his fixation, you can use the game to get him to do whatever you want wherever you go.