Doggy Games!

[Guest Anonymous]

Hey!
Whilst talking to Lexie she brought up that she's not sure what to do with Duke all the time, and I told her to start this topic, but it looks like she never so I'm going to beat her to it! :lol: :wink:

I was wondering what kind of games people play with their dogs, or with dogs in the past?

Here's what I've played...

[b]Hide and Go Seak[/b] - This I've read in a couple of books and stuff, and it looked like a lot of fun, and is! It's a great way to teach the dog a strong Come and is really fun! You can either have two people to play, or teach your dog a good "Wait". Have one person hold the dog, or put the dog in a Wait, while you go and hide, then call the dog! Hidding in different places all the time will get the dog listening to you more, and they get really worked up to go look for you. When the dog finds you, have a cookie and praise like crazy!

[b]The Foot Game[/b] - This is a game I was taught to do in Agility class to get the dog to learn how to work quick on it's feet and to not be so clumsy. Hazel loved it, and learned to move really quick on her feet, and Coal loves it too, but he always wants to tease me with the ball, meanwhile all I want is his feet, so he'll roll over on them and everything, it's really funny :lol: What you do is grab at the dogs feet, and excitedly say something like "guna get your feet' or whatever, don't grab a hold of course, but just grab at them, the dog will pull it's feet away and dance around like a mad man, and it's really a lot of fun for both. But make sure the dog knows the difference between you playing this game, and when you need to be serious for a moment and really need to pick up his feet for trimmping, whiping paws, ect. You can do this by teaching different commands, the "get your feet" is a cue to the dog to start moving his feet or you'll get them! :lol: And another command, with Coal it's "lift" when you pick up the dogs feet for whatever reason.

[b]Fetch[/b] - An obvious one of course. With Coal I play with two different things, a ball and usually a rope or a rag. This was to help teach him to "drop it", I would throw the ball and he'd go to get it, then when he brought it back and dropped it, I would praise and throw the rope, this way there was no me chasing him around for the ball! :lol:

[b]Tug-Of-War[/b] - This is a great game to play, as long as you set some rules, which I'm sure most everyone knows. With Coal, I have to make sure I win every time, because he's a dominant dog towards me, and i don't play it very often, but when I do he has a ball.

[b]Search[/b] - One thing that I like about the snow now... I plan on teaching Coal this game this winter, once I get him a good toy that he won't lose (he's down to only one ball now, and it's not allowed outside). What you do is at first you have the dog watch as you throw a ball or whatever into the tall grass, or into the snow, wait about a second or two, then let the dog go and tell him to "search" or whatever command you chose. Once the dog has got the hang of that, you can start hidding the ball while the dog is in the crate or where ever out of site, and tell them to search for the object, it's best if the toy is a really smelly one. It works great if it's something like a Kong, and you can stuff it full of treats. I use to play this with Hazel when the horse pen wasn't mowed down and had grass that was really tall! :D
We use to play a version a bit like that with Blue, but we would rub a treat along the floor in a trail to some other room where there was the jackpot of treats, and he had to sniff it out :D No wonder why Blue got overweight :o :oops:

I think that's it for now... if i think of any other ones I will post them!
Now I can't wait to hear of the games you all play with your dogs! :D

[MajiesMom]

My favorite game (indoor game) with Magic is I have her sit and stay in a room and in another room I hide one of her toys. I call her to come and "find it." She has an amazing nose so it is a really fun game for us and we can do it for hours LOL.
Other fun stuff for us is learning new tricks and doing obedience. I love trying to teach her things like turn on/off the lights and go to the fridge and get me a can of pop. So far she can open the fridge but hasen't quite grasped the get me the pop part.
Outdoor fun besides, fetch, tug-o-war etc - set up your own agility course.

[Guest Anonymous]

[quote name='MajiesMom']I love trying to teach her things like turn on/off the lights and go to the fridge and get me a can of pop. So far she can open the fridge but hasen't quite grasped the get me the pop part.
[/quote]
I taught that one to Hazel, and the problem with using pop is if the dog drops it, and it explodes, or then you can't open it forever, and whined up with flat pop on your hands! :lol: I used the command "pop" because it was simple, but really she would just get me a bottle of water from the fridge :wink:

[gooeydog]

We (Goo and me, the other dogs just don't get the concept :roll: ) do hide and seek... we also do obedience races, I work with 2-4 of the dogs at once, sitting around me, and the fastest dog gets the treat (obviously, this would only work with multi-dog households, unless of course you have a well trained child :lol: ). We do the "find the treat" game as well, and "find the toy". We also do "paper shredder", where I hand any junk mail, mistyped office work, etc off to Goo and let her go to town on it :lol: That carries over into "tear up the box", where I dump some kibbles and a toy or two into a box (with or without paper torn up inside to add to the fun :roll: ), tape it up, and give it to Goo to open. Both the last two are rather messy.

I'm also a bit embarassed to admit that several times over the past month, I've filled up the bathtub, plopped a couple toys in there, and let Annie swim around in there after them for a while :oops:
(BTW, I stayed in there with her the entire time, just to make sure she didn't find some way to drown herself :roll: ).

[Horsefeathers!]

My most gee golly favorite game to play with my dogs is "the quiet game." The object of the game is to see who can be quiet the longest. They don't fall for it, either. :-?

[Snow]

I read about this game in one of the dog magazines and it occupied my dog for quite awhile. You take a ball or favorite toy or treat and wrap it in an old towel, tie the ends of the towel loosely and the dog has a blast trying to get the ball, treat or whatever out of the towel. To teach the game start by just covering the item with the towel, then wrap it up in the towel and then tie the ends slightly, then tighter. It is both mentally and physically stimulating. Don't forget to praise when the dog gets the item out of the towel.

[Peng1zrule]

my dogs and I don't really play games--they tend to play by themselves, without me. I do play with some of them, like fetch with gypsy or tugging things, or rolling around with india...the dog I play with is my bf's GSD, I looooove that dog. The dog loves me, too, so when she hears my car coming, she goes and gets out her squeaky ball. she has it waiting and when I come in, she goes and lays down with it. I'll try to sneak up and grab it, and she will protect it by picking it up. She'll even carry it out of the room to get a drink! Of course, she tends to forget it once she puts it down and drinks, so I wait for her to lay down and just take off at a dead run, and she will look around and give this barking howl and jump to her feet, trying to beat me to it. Sometimes she leaves the room with it and comes back and bumps into me, "look, look, it's not here, let's race to it!" and we will. when i DO get it (and she's infinately more patient than me) I hide it behind my back, squeeze it, and make her "look" for it. she knows I have it, but when she turns around to "look" for it, I place it somewhere not TOO hidden. then I show her both hands and let her search the loveseat, where I always sit. then she really looks for it, searching high and low. she uses her sense of smell to guide her to it. she loves this game, and so do I!

[abker17]

Great games everyone, I'm going to try some of these, especially since winter has rolled around and I'm inside a lot. :D
I play hide and seek with Abby to, except a little differently. She sits on my bed and I cover her with a blanket, then while she's getting out I run somewhere and hide. :lol: She looks all over till she finds me and when she does I give her a treat. It's a lot of fun. :lol: :D

[snowpaws]

Kodi and I play hide and seek,
I wind him up so that he is going crackerdog around the house, and he eventually goes into the garden and watches me through the window. Then I duck down really fast and hide, and he comes plummeting through the dog flap to find me.
I sometimes get impatient and jump out at him though which is hilarious! :lol: The first time I did it he leap about a foot in the air and then jumped all over me. :lol:
But then once when I did it I thought I heard him coming and jumped out screaming my head off and it was my dad.. :oops: kinda embaressing..