One of our favorites is 'hide the food'. Penny sits and I put a piece of food near her nose so she knows what she's looking for. Then she 'waits' while I hide the food at the other end of the house, making sure to choose places that offer her a challenge - for instance, up high, so she has to stretch to find it, or behind half-open doors so she has to nudge them open.
Another game is what I call 'chasey', where I chase her around the house to get the tennis ball from her, then throw it (gently, lol) for her to fetch. She gets it and runs away from me. The fun part is that if I don't chase her, if in fact I run away from her, she pursues me and then I'll do a sudden about turn and leap on her to grab it.
There's one important rule. The green mat is 'barley'. What that means to us is that if Penny sits on her mat, there's a truce and we can't demand the ball from her or try to grab it.
I think there are a couple of advantages to the 'barley' rule. Firstly, it gives Penny a choice about how long to continue the game. But, more importantly, she can usually be tricked into leaping on to the barley-mat and we can have a rest.
We've always used 'barley' in our family to signify a truce from a boisterous game, and I got to wondering where the word comes from. I've found that it's not used in many countries and is a childhood term.
The references I browsed say it's not used by adults, but I think adults who live with dogs are in touch with their 'inner child', lol. After all, I'd never have thought I'd be racing around the house playing games when I reached this age!
7 comments:
Ooh, I love that hiding food game too, Penny - except my human usually does mine outside in the garden coz inside the house, I leave a trail of drool on every surface as I go sniffing around the house looking for it!! :-)
Slobbers,
Honey the Great Dane
Honey, Penny doesn't drool when she's playing sniffing games, but she does have white froth around her nose. It's rather embarrassing when we meet new dogs (and their humans).
I'm sorry you and Penny are uncomfortably hot! I hope that eases for you soon. The hiding food game sounds like fun - we can't play that in our house as Cash always has us soundly beat. (He woke us at 5:30 AM today getting a hotdog wrapper from the trash.)
INDOORS!!!! Penny is allowed to play that kind of game indoors?!?! Could you please ask her if I can move in?! Even if it is just for a holiday maybe?!?!? Slobbers Teal'c the Great ;)
Curator, it sounds as if Cash makes up his own games!
Teal'c, Penny's our first dog, so we didn't know there are supposed to be rules. One day a friend was visiting and Penny produced a tennis ball and waited for us to play, and the friend told her off sternly for thinking it was ok to play chasey in the house. I had hide my blushes and cravenly let Penny take the blame, lol.
One of our walls still has splodges on it from wet tennis balls hitting it on a rainy day. (Must remember to repaint that wall one of these days!)
No rules!! None at all?! ;) To be honest - I like it when my mom is out and about and only dad is at home... I figured long time ago that South Africans don't know as much about rules as Germans! With him I can run in the house, jump on the bed, wrestle with the blankets, pull on the leash and have as much sniffs as I want to... With mom it is all about obedience first and then fun - PAH! Please tell Penny that she is a very lucky dog! ;) Slobbers T.
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