# Growling while playing? Is it normal/ok?



## d0r1en0 (Feb 3, 2011)

So my pup Dolce, plays ruff with our 11 week old chihu. Dolce is 7 weeks, today. Ivy is a lil rough with her, but they get along fine. When they play, Dolce growls, but neither of them yelp, as if theyre in pain. Also, they will sometimes lay next to each other, and wrestle untill they both fall asleep. This is my first pitbull, and my family doesnt really like the growling. My aunt when she was younger, had a dob and a poodle, and when they came home one day, there was no more poodle. I told them, the two pups, are just playing, but you know the rap pits have. what do you all think? heres a video, of how they play. Notice at the end, dolce gets tired of it.


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## aimee235 (Apr 29, 2007)

Didn't watch the whole movie, but it seems like normal play. Dogs growl when they play. I would plan on doing crate and rotate with them as they get older. Dog aggression is very common in this breed.


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## d0r1en0 (Feb 3, 2011)

ok cool. They both are being crate trained now, and we seperate them. I dont leave them alone by themselves, only time they get to play, is if im there to watch. hopefully they can grow up and be best friends. when i brought dolce home, our chihu Ivy sat and watched her sleep all night, as if she was proctecting her.


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## aus_staffy (Nov 10, 2009)

That's the best way to do it. Just keep that up and you should be fine. Don't feed them together either.


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## d0r1en0 (Feb 3, 2011)

aus_staffy said:


> That's the best way to do it. Just keep that up and you should be fine. Don't feed them together either.


yea, i learned the feeding quick. Dolce would just hog all the food, no agression, just her big head, wouldnt let Ivy get any food.


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## dixieland (Aug 14, 2009)

Just be cautious with the playing.All it would take from your dog when it's older is one bite to the little one to end it's life.


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## k8nkane (Jul 9, 2010)

Because of the size difference, I would encourage Dolce as she gets older to lay down when playing with your chi.

I had a corgi pup (4lbs) that my boy (50lbs) loved to play with. When he tried to stand up and play with her (like with the tug rope, etc), he always used to trip over her on accident or step on her paw, etc. Just because he was a big goof and klutzy and he doesn't always know where all his paws are.

Eventually he got the hang of laying down and playing bitey-face with the pup.

Watching the movie, at ~1:38 or so, there was yelping where you should have separated them. That yelping actually made my boy lift his head up from a dead sleep and look around. If one of them yelps like that, no matter who it is, play time is over. It doesn't get to continue. They especially need to learn boundaries and rules when playing with each other and they both need to learn that if they bite so hard the other yelps, the fun stops. Otherwise, fights could happen.

Make sure when you notice one is done playing, you stop play, which you actually did really well at the end.


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## Eric (Oct 21, 2010)

Very cute puppies!! 

Ok, The growling that I heard during the video is normal. Its a total play growl and what I learned from a dog trainer who specializes in our breed, is that its similar to laughing. They are having a good time and encouraging each other to play and letting them know. My old amstaff/pit mix used to do those same growls whenever we would play tug, and my 10 month old pit bull now, isn't all that vocal when playing. But yeah, those growls aren't aggressive growls and you'll learn to hear a difference in the tones your pups give off.

Like Kate said, at the 1:38 mark, there should have been a small timeout after the yelp. I would also have made a break in the playtime at 2:25 when Dolce grabbed Ivy's neck and did the 3 shakes. I say that because like what was said before, when she is older, she will be so much bigger than Ivy and I would hate for her to accidentally hurt her if she were to do the same move. Good job at calling the final timeout for being too rough 

One last suggestion, whenever you have playtime with them, every few minutes break them up. Not long, maybe 30 seconds or a minute. It'll just give them a short time to cool down again and to show them that you're in charge of playtime. Do the same thing if either of them isn't playing nicely and give them a short time out. 

Hope it helps and good luck raising 2 puppies at once  They're adorable!


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