tennis ball obsessed vs playing with other dogs

jsabina

Sorry people for posting so much, but I have a lot of questions these days!
And Jago at 2 years old is changing a lot, my fault that I thought he was adult already with personality not changing.

here the facts and I might repeat myself sometimes, sorry about that

Jago as a puppy and until a while Jago was playing a loooot with all the other dogs we would meet.
Slowly he became always more interested into tennisballs and fecth.
I like that because he is very focused and if I have a tennisball he does what I want / example if dogs are fighting and I take tennisball he wouldn't care about them... and so on.

So our evening walk is 1 hour in a field playing with the ball.
Sometimes there are other dogs, he ignores them and keeps playing.
He has no problem sharing the ball, he is not possessive.

We were doing over the summer almost once a week a dog walk with a meetup group where I didn't bring the ball to let him interact with other dogs and sniff around.

But from the end of August we stopped.

Now if we are in a dog park and dogs try to play with him he tries to ignore them, if they insist he will growl a bit at them.
He never ever plays anymore with other dogs, only at home with my sister's dog (and buddy).
We went last week to a dog meetup with no ball and he was ok running a bit with the others / sniffing around.

But tonight two dogs really wanted to play and he was very annoyed growling and just wanted to play with the ball.

Now.
Is it good?
Is it bad?

I know every dog has his own personality so if he is less inclined to play with dogs and more with the ball I can accept that

But I don't want to be the one reinforcing an obsession?
What do you think about that?

I always thought that have a toy to keep the dog focused was a very good thing, and some training pages I read confirmed that.
But I would like to hear other experiences.

thanks!

ferretone

I'm far from expert or anything, but I'd say it's absolutely great that he prefers to play with you, rather than run off with other people's dogs, as your research has suggested. however, I probably wouldn't play with him for an entire hour with a ball: as you say yourself, retrieving can indeed become a bit of an obsession. Instead, I'd introduce other games, such as hiding things under tubs for him to find, perhaps even introduce a little agility-type stuff. Just mix it up a bit.

And as for what happened tonight, well I'd just be keeping a sharp eye out for other dogs, and if you see some in the distance, remove the ball and start doing something else with him, which doesn't involve such a focus for him to start getting annoyed about. It certainly isn't every dog that will continue to want to play with all newcomers, all their lives; that's why it's all the better that yours isn't like that, so at least you know for sure, he won't be the fella you will be worried about having to distract from annoying all those dogs like the one he seems to be turning into!

I would continue the interactions with other dogs that he enjoys, and try to avoid getting into the situations he doesn't, as far as possible. I fully expect more knowledgeable people to come and correct this, but that would be my instinct on this.

boomerang

What breed is he? This is perfectly normal behaviour for a collie. Not just the ball chasing, but the disinterest in other dogs, also.

jsabina

His mother is an irish red setter... father unknown