Who Controls The Game?????

Who controls the game????
Have you ever been badgered into a game of fetch with your dog? Bumped, bopped, barked at, nose flipping your hand, being leaned on, stared at, so generally and thoroughly harassed... lol! I think we've all experienced this at one time or another! It's absolutely wonderful to play with your dog and it's even better when your dog is crazy in love with fetch but it is not so wonderful if your dog bullies you into the game or harasses constantly. These are signs that your dog feels very much in control of things and feels entitled to push you around... this is the wrong mind set for any dog. Little Olie here and my dog Auggie, Mr. Cool 😎, LOVE fetch like nobody's business. These two dogs are so serious about the game that they would take it to Olympic intensity if we let them. But we don't because that would allow them to practice all those obsessed and harassing behaviours I just described. So, instead, we play the game on my terms. I start the game and I stop the game. When I decide we're done, we're done and the matter is dropped. We play by my rules... which are to be polite and wait (no pushing, leaning, jumping, barking, playing keep away, etc.) and don't lose your mind just because you see a ball or a bumper... we can still have tons of fun without coming unhinged lol!!! 😂 It takes two to play, one to throw and one to fetch and if the human is getting harassed, jumped on or treated disrespectfully then that's not fair or fun! It's great to have fun with our dogs... but it has to be fun for us humans too 😉