Any advice would be gratefully received on how to stop play going OTT and getting out of hand. Having kept two pups from Esme's last litter (yes, I know, and never again!) I am finding their play sessions are getting somewhat OTT (they are now 9 months old). Mo, a daughter from Esme's first litter, and Esme play nicely together, lots of noise and ruff and tumble, but that's it. Faith and Frederick play incredibly roughly and at times it is getting out of hand. It's usually Faith that goes in all teeth baring. When I let them out into the small paddock at the back all is relatively calm until either Fred or Fai appear on the scene. One at a time with the other dogs they are better, although Frederick does get a bit OTT with Mo, it's just worse when they are all together. It's fairly manic in the house as well once they start.

When my two youngsters start getting OTT the only thing to do is separate them till they've calmed down again.

Yep, separation if they just won't stop.  I have to regulate Willow and Linc quite a bit, she's utterly obsessed with him and knows how to really rile him up and when they're on full form, it gets VERY loud and rough.  Mostly I do a lot of splitting and body blocking - putting myself between them then blocking her from going back to him until she either walks away or sits, then I move away again.

It took a LOT of repetition to begin with to get her to stay backed off, but with perserverance it only takes a try or to now if they get too rough - and the roughness itself is happening less as is the noise.  If she does get totally OTT she goes in the cage with a chew while she calms down.

I had a problem today when my pup's play with another pup (mine is 4 mths - weimaraner, the other was 5 1/2 mth Alsatian) was getting too OTT.  I called my pup to me so that she could calm down, and when I reach down to hold her collar she jumped up and latched onto my arm with her teeth (jaw locked about it) and bit really really hard.  She hasn't displayed that type of behaviour for weeks, and I thought I was training it out of her.

Any tips would be great.  firstly, did I do the right thing to try to calm down play (i.e. call her away), and how do I respond if she bites in such a scenario (i.e. off lead, no way to discipline her, as she can just run away back to the other pup to play)? You mention separation, but how do you do that?

I'm nervous that she is getting very big and strong already.

My pup is five and a half months and is becoming overexcited about all manner of things, but especially other dogs. It takes quite a while at her training class to get her to concentrate on me rather then the other dogs. She's the same when playing with another dog and objects to being stopped unless she has become quite tired. It was interesting raising a pup with another dog, although the older one was only older by about a year. They did have mad moments, but she taught the pup how to play in a quieter more civilised way by lying on the floor and mouth wrestling! Rather miss her with this big lumpy, lively pup we have now

The separation I spoke about is all indoors - however I have had to put a lot of work in to Willow's play on walks as well, as she would bagder Linc constantly if left to her own devices.

The first thing I did was work on improving her response to me in his presence - for that she had to be on lead.  Nothing special, just keeping her on, rewarding her when she looked at me, and if she was trying to pull to get to him I just didn't go anywhere - if she persisted I turned around and walked further away from him.  Now, don't have an image in your head of her walking away with me - she was not happy about it lol!  A lot of it was me walking a puppy backwards :-P  But the message did sink in when it was happening every time she ignored me and tried to run after him.  It's helped her lead walking a lot too.

With better response but still on lead, I started to reward her for turning away from him while she was with him, or for walking with him but not starting to badger him.  I carried that on off lead.

Right now we're at the stage of 'away', 'leave' and rewarding her for choosing not to annoy him.  'Away' I use for if she's already started to do it - again this was started on lead so I could enforce it.  'Leave' I use when she's about to start on him and with those combined, I'm getting more and more opportunities to reward her when she's chosen not to do it in the first place.

For general play if it gets OTT on walks then recall is your best friend - but the key is not to just reward her for coming back, but to then build up the duration of staying with you.  Again it needs working when she's not being OTT to start with, to give her a better chance of success.  So rather than just recall then a treat, you'd do that the first time, then recall + stay a second (not a formal stay, just paying attention to you) then a treat, then stay a couple of seconds and so on.  I do this randomly on walks as well with Willow and it's been very useful in getting her less distracted.

The idea as always is to avoid the really bad stuff happening to start with so if you can build up the behaviours you want in less trying situations (so when she's just socialising or mooching about but not playing like a demon to start with), then you've got a much better chance of getting them when you need them; and if you can start with her on a lead then you won't find yourself in the position of having to restrain her, but rather you can manage things so they don't reach the level of intensity where she's losing control of her teeth again.