Earlier today George found someone else’s toy in the backyard — a tennis ball on a piece of rope — and he wouldn’t part with it so I let him bring it inside. Fast forward a couple hours and I come home from getting some rather pricey groceries and I ask The Partner what happened to the toy.
“The rope-ball thing? George tore up the ball, but there’s some left. It’s in the toy box.”
“Ah. It isn’t his.”
“I was wondering about that. I thought maybe you had gone to Giant Pet Store earlier and bought a new toy. But hey, George sort-of played tug with me.”
George sort-of played tug.
After dinner we went outside and I was flopping the toy around on the ground while George pretended to be a cat, pouncing on it and smacking it with his paws. Then he picked it up with his mouth and started backing away, while I was still holding it. I gave him some resistance, and he still held on to the toy.
This is major.
After two years George is finally playing tug, albeit in a kinda, sort-of way. He doesn’t growl and won’t tug too hard, but he’s definitely playing. Hopefully I can get him to play tomorrow so I can take a few shots of him seeming more like a dog who isn’t afraid of humans.
He’s making progress!
When Wolf was a kid, he used to play tug with his dog Alexa all the time. I’m not sure who loved the game more, him or her. Jaxsun, however, won’t play tug and it really bums Wolf out. We tried over and over to get Jaxsun to play, but he just won’t. I think he was never taught to play when he was a puppy.
With George, we’re not sure if he was just never taught, or if he had a bad experience (abuse) with it at some point in his life. We don’t know very much about his history, only that there was a boyfriend at some point who didn’t like him — but we don’t know how far that dislike extended.
Hopefully it’s the former and eventually we can teach him how to play tug.