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I'm happy to report that Gertie is healed. As was evidenced yesterday when I finally let her out to play with Momo on a trial run. They were running full speed, he lost his balance and landed on his side, Gertie took full advantage of the prone position and used her head like a bulldozer to scoot him another 15 feet, stopping 3 feet short of the side of the house. For non-aggressive players these two are going to kill each other through sheer exuberance, I swear! I am supervising and limiting their time together. I'm also attempting to encourage running over rough housing - they both love running so that makes it easier to reinforce. I stop the rough housing after it starts, and am trying to figure out the cues so I can stop it Before it starts. Again, it's only play, but they're so rough with each other that I want to limit it to short sessions until they learn how much I'm going to accept and allow them to keep going. It's Excellent exercise for them and she's definitely better behaved after they've tired each other out, but it won't do if one of them gets injured again. If I praise the running then Momo takes that to mean "commence rough housing," so I'm stumped as to how to keep them running, short of keeping my mouth shut and "disciplining" rough housing by stopping the play. They act the way fraternity boys are portrayed in movies when they're doing things like running their heads into walls just to see who gets knocked out first. I took her to the dog park a week ago and she was Tiny compared to all the other dogs. She's 41 lbs so not small, but I guess people around here really like their big dogs (me, too, but it would appear I'm a sucker for pound puppies who tend to stay medium-sized). She played with a couple German Shepherds who Literally walked all over her, lol. She figured out she could run under them, but she still had to do some bobbing and weaving. She's all play - no aggression, but her excitement gets others riled up and she ends up getting rolled and tossed. I'm not sure how to temper her zeal other than exercising her before the park. I might rule parks out until I can solve this riddle. Initially we walked around the trail that makes up the perimeter of the park and she stayed within 20'ish feet of me, and wasn't showing much interest in the other occupants. I let her sniff and do her thing while I kept walking and she'd catch up after I got to a certain distance. After three laps I stopped near the other dogs and let them approach us, that was the Shepherds (whom I wanted to love all over, but restrained myself, lol). I also need to decide whether I want her socialized to play with other dogs, or socialized to accept but ignore other dogs. There are benefits and drawbacks to both. In the house poor Abbi gets thwapped by Gertie's paw, and pounced on as Gertie is hopping all over and Abbi lacks the agility to escape. Not cool for 10 lbs vs 41 lbs. Then the Dachshund little dog complex kicks in and Gertie's still playing, but Abbi is out for blood and truly angry. Abbi's personality is one of luxury and naps, so for her to get ticked off is out of character. Currently I tell Gertie to leave it and then we scoop Abbi up and separate the two because Abbi's still going for Gertie's throat. Fortunately it's a manageable situation that happens infrequently because Abbi generally prefers to remain in her corner sleeping, but it needs to be nipped in the bud. I'm not sure how to teach Gertie that Abbi is off limits. As soon as we see Gertie start to get playful towards Abbi we stop it, but it's not seeming to sink into her thick skull. The oddest thing is that she leaves the cat largely alone. She still does the hopping thing, trying to get him to play, but she keeps her paws off him. I haven't ever seen him swipe at her, but my guess is he must have tagged her with his claws a time or two. So, I suppose my post is getting around to: a) her toe is definitely better and b) any ideas on how to teach "gentle" play would be appreciated.