Now I come home after work and walk into the house and Smitten is there to greet me at the door. Keaton is in his crate, sitting, wagging his tail urgently, waiting for me to let him out. I walk over to the crate and unlatch the door. Keaton is so excited, he can barely contain himself. I open the door. I say, "Hi Keaton," and he gives me barely a "Yeah, hi," then passes by me and trots over to Smitten. They stare at each other.
It's finally time to throw down.
These two dogs have become wrestling fiends. They wrestle first thing in the morning. The wrestle first chance in the evening. They wrestle before they go to sleep. If I didn't tell them to stop, they'd probably wrestle until they collapsed in exhaustion. The longest session they've had is close to an hour. Usually, they go for at least fifteen minutes before I get them to cease and desist.
Here's the action.
It all starts with some cursory feints and mouth jabs.
Here we start to see one of Keaton's signature moves which is the snowplow. He gets low and snowplows Smitten's legs. Inside, on the slippery hardwood, this causes her to fall over but in this next segment, she recovers.
The next clip shows a perfect example of Keaton's snowplow on Smitten. Note how the snowplow is usually followed by the now-I-rip-your-throat-out technique.
Keaton's second signature move is the bum-in-yer-face technique. He uses it hear to immobilize Smitten before he does a quick spin and attempts another snowplow.
Keaton's third technique is rarely used but here is a good example of the Grizzy Bear where he gets up on his hind legs while waving his front legs around before attacking, usually in a feeble attempt to hump Smitten.
Inevitably, the fight goes outside. Here they come.
Smitten has traction outside and this gives her an advantage. She's now able to use her weight to control the fight and Keaton's attempts at snowplowing don't fare as well. You'll also notice how, near the end of this next clip, Smitten does a shake. Dogs often shake as a signal that they want a time-out. Keaton doesn't care that Smitten wants a time-out. Instead, he uses her momentary lapse in attention to attack. Sneaky bugger.
Keaton's not the only one to fight dirty, though. Next you'll see Keaton interrupt the fight for a time-out by picking up a stick. This is his signal that he wants a breather. No way Smitten is going to give him that after he jumped her while she was having a shake so she jumps him while he is preoccupied with the stick.
For all you fight fanatics out there, here's almost three full minutes of these two nutbars carrying on.
This is exactly how my two dogs (Halladay & Wookie) play. Isn't it great? Halladay sounds like a rabid animal when he's going after Wookie, which used to freak people out at the dog park, but they got over it pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteFabtastic post.
ReplyDeleteThey look very happy. A bit crazy mabye, but definitely happy!
BWAAHAAAAA!!!! Too funny! Good thing they've got each other to wear off their energy, or you'd be walking them for days *grin*.
ReplyDeleteCompared to shibas, they are so...gentle...
ReplyDelete