While people outside of puppy play may think it can be given a one-line definition, it is certainly not the case here. But here is the most objective attempt of a definition and history we can attempt with our research.

Puppy Play – A constantly evolving fetish where people have an interest in the role-play as canines and their associated handlers. Historical records show it first appear in Europe in the 17th century, while gaining popularity with the invention of the internet in the early 1990’s

Puppy (Pup, Dog, Alpha, Omega, Pupper etc)

Someone who is a “puppy” is the person taking on a role with a canine personality. This can take many shapes and size sounds and smells and looks. As simple as that cathartic outburst of howling at the moon, so just enjoying the platonic touching of ‘pats’ and much more.

Handler (Sir, Madam, Mister, Ms etc)

Someone who is a “handler” is the person taking on a role to be the human counterpart in a modern animal pet-human role. Some are more dotting over pups, some like crowds of pups, some like to train pups with canine-like agility skills and some like to curl up on the couch and cuddle with their own pup.

What Puppy Play Can Be:

Sexual and/Or Social

Over the years, we have asked people on a scale of 1 to 10 if their style of pup play is purely sexual to purely social respectively and over 4,000 people between 2016 and 2019 ranged all over the place, but every region averaging a 5.5 plus or minus 0.3, showing the trend towards social and platonic puppy play but there are still those who practice it sexually between consenting adults.

All Shapes, Sizes, Ages, Genders and Sexualities

There are those that have been around for decades, there are those who have yet to go to their own social meet-up, there are those who only do it at home and surf the internet. Every shape, age, gender, disability, sexuality, race, hair colour etc. are out there expressing their pup side the way they want to. And if they can, just shows that you can too.

There is Gear, But its Not Everyone’s Choice

There is a lot of gear and assorted tools out there to help you along your journey, some are big businesses to all the many artisan artists making one of a kind stuff. Having is no shame either, you definitely don’t need it, there are plenty of pups and handlers who do it purely for the experience than what anyone’s wearing.