I think overdoing any activity can be stressful, but I don't necessarily think it'll make a dog reactive or aggressive.

I've read this article at least twice, and my personal opinion is that the dog in question should probably not go visiting a friend after having played for a long time... she should be allowed to go home and conk out on her pillow. I think the "overstimulation" is caused by the visit, not by playing hard/fetching itself.I know that my own dogs prefer to chill out in our house, on their own beds/blankets, when they're tired... just like people (and especially small children) get cranky when they're "overtired" I would think the same thing might happen w/dogs.

I would agree that a lot of people discount or don't realize how important mental exercise is for dogs, but I'm not sure about everything in the article. One thing that stuck out for me was that the author mentions that the dog's behavior improved when she started to add obedience into the games of fetch. Is it possible that the dog had just never been taught how to settle down once he got excited? I see lots of dogs like this. They have no off switch, because no one ever taught them how to settle down and control themselves. It's often true that they could use more mental stimulation, but they also need to learn some self-control.

It might be more what Hundilein mentioned, needing to learn to calm down when worked up.

I can't see how exercise and interaction with the dog's owner would be something bad

I actually thought this thread was going to be about too much fetch being hard on the dog's joints Wich is about the only negative I can see...

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day, tomorrow doesn't look good either.
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"You didn't know of the magical powers of the break stick? It's up there with genies and Harry Potter as far as magic levels go." SisMorphine 01/07/07

Hundilein wrote:I would agree that a lot of people discount or don't realize how important mental exercise is for dogs, but I'm not sure about everything in the article. One thing that stuck out for me was that the author mentions that the dog's behavior improved when she started to add obedience into the games of fetch. Is it possible that the dog had just never been taught how to settle down once he got excited? I see lots of dogs like this. They have no off switch, because no one ever taught them how to settle down and control themselves. It's often true that they could use more mental stimulation, but they also need to learn some self-control.

Which is exactly what I thought of when I started reading the article. Certainly there is a happy medium in life and certainly you may see an increase in unwanted behaviors if the only thing you encourage is a balls to the wall dog with little to no self control.

Look at disc dogs for example. Most competitive handlers play disc with their dogs 5 or 6 times a week and this is basically a game of fetch. The difference is that in competitive disc the dog is required to learn an enormous amount of skills and is constantly thinking and reacting to body language and verbal cues.