Canine Cogitations from a Local Luminary

There are many reasons to play training games aside from the obvious — that it’s fun! Playing games rapidly accelerates the speed of learning.

Not only do tricks and games motivate both dogs and owners to give their very best performances; they also, motivate owners to practice. For some owners, sit-stay homework is not very exciting, but many will practice Musical Chairs or Doggy Dancing to the wee hours of the morning. The most worthwhile reason to play games is to establish a personal best, setting personal goals and striving to progressively better the personal best from week to week. 

SIRIUS® has taught games classes for nearly thirty years. We teach tricks and games to improve the quality of the relationship between dogs and their people, with each individual game specifically designed to fine-tune essential ingredients of your dog’s training repertoire. For example, with tricks as simple as Biscuit Balance and Playing Possum, you end up with fantastic Sit-Stays and Down-Stays. In a Following Race, eight people have to get their dogs to follow them around a course marked by red traffic cones. This game strengthens the psychological bungee cord between owner and dog, so that it is unnecessary to teach recalls. Training Send Outs further reinforce a dog’s centripetal attraction to his owner. In a Backwards Send Out, two owners remain behind the Start Line and their dogs have to race backwards away from them. Ironically, by teaching a dog to run away on cue, ultra-reliable recalls appear by magic. We have found that Doggy Dancing is the best way of all to teach attention, recalls, and following in highly distracting settings.

I had so much fun teaching games classes that in 1995 I put on an event called The K9 GAMES® at Fort Mason in San Francisco. This canine sports extravaganza is still held annually in France and Japan, and we are about to bring it back to the States. The K9 GAMES® is a team competition comprising nine different challenges, namely:

1. The Doggy Dash, an elimination event in which two dogs race at the same time and the first dog to sit across the Finish goes through to the next round. In the Recall Relay, teams of four dogs race against each other. In both recall events, all dogs must be super-friendly and confident around people to play because they are held by stewards (strangers) at the Start Line. A reliable recall is pretty much taken for granted, the recall races are all about teaching a quick emergency sit — an invaluable command for pet dogs. In the real world, a quick and reliable sit pretty much resolves almost any behavior or training problem. 
2. Musical Chairs, in which handlers and dogs walk around a rectangle to music. When the music stops, the handlers instruct their dogs to sit and rush to sit on an empty chair. Of course, there are always fewer chairs than handlers. If a handler cannot find an empty chair, she may act silly to try to get the other dogs to break their sit-stays. Musical Chairs teaches dogs two of the most useful pet dog skills—a lightning-quick sit plus a rock-solid stay. 
3. Distance Catch, the secret to which is a solid sit-stay, so that the dog doesn’t move from the position where the handler wants the catch.
4. The Kong Retrieve, where dogs have just one minute to retrieve as many Kongs as possible. Kongs of different colors have different point values. Retrieving a Bonus Kitty (stuffed animal) doubles the dog’s score and retrieving a Penalty Bone halves the dog’s score. The Kong Retrieve is one of the most exciting and fast-paced games, and it teaches  discriminated retrieves in the same way you would teach your dog to find your lost keys or the TV remote control.
5. The Woof Relay, a timed event with five dogs to a team. In succession, each dog has to “woof” three times and then shush. Dogs who compete in the Woof Relay seldom become problem barkers, because they have learned to “Speak” and “Shush” on cue. 
6. The Joe Pup Relay, in which two dogs race at a time. Each dog has to run from one person to another, performing a different routine with each one. This teaches dogs to follow instructions from people other than their owners so that family and friends can work with the dog when the occasion demands it. 
7. Take & Drop is the most difficult event because the dog’s performance has to be quite precise as he takes an object from his handler and drops it as close as possible to a marker thirty feet away. A dog that competes successfully in Take & Drop is simply an extremely well-trained dog.
8. Waltzes With Dogs, the signature event of the K9 GAMES®, wherein each owner-and-dog couple perform a unique choreography set to music. The various routines are scored according to Technical Merit and Artistic Impression by a panel of five celebrity judges. Owners come up with creative and captivating routines, often moving, sometimes quite bizarre, but always a joy to watch. 

The K9 GAMES® injects a lot of sparkle and excitement into pet dog training and is a super-fun and exhilarating doggy sports event, for both competitors and spectators. For videos of the K9 GAMES® check out www.dogstardaily.com/training/k9-games®

Ian Dunbar is a veterinarian, canine behaviorist, and puppy-training pio-neer. He is the founder of SIRIUS® Puppy Training and Scientific Director for www.dogstardaily.com.

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