My dog is so friendly towards other dogs and often whines for me to allow him to play if he sees some in the park and he is on the lead.
I will walk over to them and see if they are happy as i know that he can get quite boisterous and due to his size some owners aren't happy with this.

Anyway my dog has been brought up with my friends dog who is a GSD. They don't live together but as young puppies spent a lot of time together playing and having fun. They were both as boisterous as each other..
Recently we haven't had the time to get them together as much as we'd of liked.
It did come about that after much time that my boy was alpha in the dog pack between them.

We have got them together twice in the past week and each time my friend has brought along a ball.
When she throws the ball my boy runs after it and gets it. He GSD won't run after it if my boy goes for it.
If her GSD gets a head start and goes for it my boy runs after him not the ball and blocks him from running.
I always thought this was him playing.
My friend said that her GSD is intimidated by my boy now and started shouting at him(not at the right time,after he had done this and then stopped) for blocking her dog from getting the ball.

My boy is a big dog and none of his demeanour is aggressive in any way, he just tends to throw his weight around in play.

I in the end walked away with my boy and played elsewhere in the park as i'd had enough of her shouting at my boy, and she was so desperate to play ball with her dog i didn't see any reason to be around her, even though we were supposed to be walking together.

I know this is long but wanted other peoples thoughts on this.
Should i be stopping him from blocking any dog from getting the ball in play?? He does it with our Lab who does tell him off when its too much.
How can you tell if a dog is intimidated by another dog?? I couldn't see anything in her dog, he would either just sit and not move or try to move around my boy.
I don't not want to walk with them again, but i can't have her being this way if there is nothing wrong with the way he plays.
At this moment i don't see anything wrong, but i am prepared to listen to others on this.

Thanks

It sound like the GSD is very very passive to your dog, and your dog is the dominant one but not in a bad way.  The blocking behaviour is normal in a pack of dogs, one of our males does it when he does it to our younger male, the younger one just stops and turns around as if to say fine you have the toy then.  But when he tries to do it to our bitch she soon has a quick go at him and puts him in his place and gets the toy herself.  Thankfully she likes our younger male and darts around in front of him to get him to play again but sometimes she plays with the older male but usually a rougher game.

I have had dogs for far too long now, and always had a fair sized pack around usually about ten dogs at a time.  They have their own personalities but establish their own boundries and I always let them sort out their own differences and only step in if things get too physical.

From what you have put the person with the GSD has not experienced this behaviour before.  I would find a stronger character for your dog to play with, one that isnt going to let him win all the time.
Only negative thing to look out for is if he tries to stop/block you, they sometimes try it on.  This behaviour should not be allowed with humans and you should win but with other dogs it is normal.

Emma

I have two goldies and the younger one always has to have the ball,the older dog will get to the ball first sometimes but will run right past it so younger one gets it knowing she will take it anyway.older goldie only 2 but very passive,other goldie 18months so both young but one more bossy when out doors,but indoors it changes and older dogs in charge, i suppose they know each others thoughts.

Thanks guys for your responses.
We do have other people and dogs that we go out with and a friend has a dominant dog who does give my dog what for, which i think is good.

I will say to my friend that its normal behaviour, (which i thought it was but just wanted to check) when i next see her but maybe its best we don't get the boys together when toys are about. I am NOT having her shout at my boy again.
She shouts are her dog and i find it very embaressing, her tone doesn't change just her level of voice..

I didn't want to stop him going after the ball by telling him off as he may think he shouldn't be chasing balls, which i have taught him to do.

Also this is my friends 1st ever dog, she never had them when growing up, so she is learning from the beginning with a GSD..

I agree - it is normal for the dog that is 'higher ranking' (brain fried can't think of a better phrase) to control or manage things like play. Her dog was probably getting upset because she was and because she was expecting him to bring the ball when your dog was saying he wasn't to, which will have confused him. I would say if she wants to play ball with her dog then she needs to do it on her own. :-)

Our Border has been brought up with my cocker (8 weeks difference in age). The cocker is the dominant, but the Border is quicker so he gets the ball. But if he drops it sneaky Whistler darts in and Jake will not take it off of him. He waits until he runs out of interest in the game and then nicks it back. I thought all dogs had a dominant one and a passive one. The only problem is if we are in a park my sneaky pup will nick anyones ball he isnt particular, but Whistler does not do "fetch" his favorite is an old blanket that we play tug with, which is strange as the Border doesn't do tug toys. I think you mate with the GSD needs to (play ball) play with the dog apart from other dogs if they do not want dogs to play in a doggie way.

My oldest dog was an only dog for the first four years of his life. We used to walk with various other people and their dog(s), never packs just one or two other dogs, which he thoroughly enjoyed. However, he was very competitive over his ball and would always do his best to get to a thrown ball first. Trouble was that although Australian Shepherds are supposed to be able to turn instantly my experience is that they can't (at least not the big boys, my smaller bitch can) without effectively throwing themselves round. Consequently he would frequently overshoot the ball and have to turn very sharply to get the ball before the perusing dog. Unfortunately this resulted in him having a number of muscle injuries as a young adult which effected the whole of his active life. (Obviously as he got older he learned to be more sensible, but it's a bit sad when an Aussie has to learn to be sensible.) Anyway the point of my story is that when I added other dogs to our household, we now have three, I always insisted that only one dog chases a ball at a time. I have three dogs (the old boy will be 14 next Monday) so walk with three balls. When I throw a ball I make it clear who its for, if the wrong dog goes it gets called off. I feel very strongly about it and they know it. Don't get me wrong they run together, chasing each other, playing tag etc, tuggy with the ball sometimes (all the balls are rope balls) they are just not allowed to chase each other for a ball - it's the competition element I try to avoid.