Anyway, this is only the second him I have see Jack really get in to some rough play and seem to like it. interestingly the other time was also with a spaniel of some type. Anyway, while I wish I could have had a second opinion on reading Jack, I am pretty sure I was close enough that just leaving him to play was ok.
The reason I have small doubt is Jack has developed an "odd" play style. he bares his teeth with lip curled while playing. So I really have to pay close attention to the sounds he is making, tail and ear position, hackles, and other clues.
So how did they play? LOTS and LOTS of jumping up on hind legs and bumping chests, lots of paw play where they "smacked" each other and other "wrestling" looking moves. normally Jack is only comfortable playing chase.
So despite his baring of teeth and lip curling his noises were the exact same high pitch sounding noises he makes with me, tail was neutral to a little "droopy", but not strait up like a flag pole or tucked, no hackles raised, when standing he didn't lean forward, ears were erect, but not super stiff/up facing forward.
I saw play bows, pauses in play, role reversal and handy capping and coming back for more.
The one really interesting thing I saw was a couple times Jack ended up "pinned" under Gibbs and either I or Gibb's human would get him to let Jack up, then with in seconds of that and play resuming any little touch from Jack, and Gibbs would do an exaggerated collapse to the ground. Almost as if he was say "oops, sorry, ok now you can pin me".
Apparently Gibbs despite all of this other excellent behavior, doesn't like sharing his "playmates". he started guarding Jack. Any other dog came close Gibb's behavior changed from play to GO AWAY!!! This was NOT lost on Jack. But for the third time this year Jack moved between two dogs in a tense moment and created space. He pushed an one of the "intruders" to their play back for space with none of the aggressive posturing that Gibbs was using, and soon as the dog left he turned away and returned to either me or Gibbs for more play.
Jack did have a couple moments where he did guard me from a couple other dog and his vocal noises were different then his play noises, much lower, even though some of his body language looked the same. which is why I am pretty sure he was having fun with Gibbs. The other was he would lay down on the ground and take a break all relaxed and Gibbs would lay near him. Jack almost never lays down and relaxes outside the house.
The other really cool thing from Jack's perspective was there were two small female Chihuahuas in the big dog side showing fear anytime a dog would approach, and when Jack went over to say "hi and sniff", soon as I saw their response, I called to Jack and he immediately left them and returned to me.
I was sooo proud of Jack.
You both had to put in a lot of work to get where you are now. I'm sure it feels really good to see the fruits of your labor in your sweet little dog's happy play.
