The Bully Test: How to tell if your dog (or kid or country) is having fun PLUS: FOMO crate training

If two dogs are playing, and you're unsure if your dog is into it, there is a simple "test" you can perform. The Bully Test, which was coined by Dr. Ian Dunbar, is a great way to tell how your dog feels about his or her playmate. Annie looks at how she herself behaved when faced with childhood mean girls, and how voters reacted when bullied by the Bully-In-Chief. Also: Is "bully" an inherent quality in a dog? Or a kid? Is there a term that we could come up with that doesn't vilify one of two puppies when performing this "test?" And: Why you shouldn't expect dogs to just "working it out" during play. Lastly: Annie explains how to use FOMO to train dogs to love going in crates.

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Partial Transcript:

[Intro and music]

Annie:

Here is a pretty simple thing that any dog owner can do if their dog is playing with another dog and they're not sure if both the dogs are enjoying themselves. What you do is you gently restrain whichever dog is the more outgoing, the more aggressive one. I think a lot of the time, in play with dogs, just like with kids, one person is the chaser. Hold back, restrain in whatever gentle way you can, the more aggressive of the two dogs and see what the other dog does.

If the dog comes right back and goes up to the dog, who's being restrained and is like, come on, I thought we were doing this. Then that dog probably was into it. Right? That dog was probably feeling good about that place session. If the dog goes to the other side of the room that tells you that that dog was most likely happy that he has the chance to take a break and that perhaps he was feeling bullied.

This is called the bully test. I believe it was named, if maybe not also developed, by a Dr. Ian Dunbar, a trainer of great renown and also a veterinarian. It's such a simple thing. It makes so much sense. And if it can help you make sure that two dogs aren't enjoying playing with each other, there's really no downside. And by the way, the dog who is the possible bully -- if the dog who wasn't being restrained does take the chance to go to the other side of the room -- that does not mean that one dog is a bad dog. It just means that in that situation, maybe the intensity was too much.

Maybe there’s a size difference between the two dogs that is making one of them uncomfortable. Maybe it has nothing — one dog might just be extra fearful for any reason, or no reason. Could be mix-matched play styles. So this isn’t, you know, see which dog is the good dog and which is the bad dog. It’s just a way to diagnose the healthiness and the happiness of play that is happening.

So I wanted to mention this because I think it’s a really easy tool to have in your dog training dog-owning toolbox to use with dogs who are off-leash. And I think off-leash play is very important for most dogs, much better than on leash play. But I also think one-on-one play is often the best kind of play. However, this technique could be used in a dog park situation too, or with more dogs.

Another reason why I was thinking about the bully test recently and wanted to mention it was because I was going through some stuff in my mom’s basement recently. And I found a letter. I wrote it to my mom from summer camp when I was nine. And it was about this girl who I was in grade school with at that time.

Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcast

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