Games

[BlazeLove123]

Hi again!

I was wondering what kind of games you play indoors with your dogs. I trick train with Blaze two or three times a day to keep her interested in working with me, and she seems to enjoy it, but I want to play more with her when I'm not studying and try different things. Can you do shaping with a four month old puppy? I prefer making tug a game only for outside since I want to teach her to be calm inside and although I teach her manners whilst playing tug (dropping on command, only taking the tug when I say "Take it") she still gets pretty excited. So what kind of indoor games do you play with your border collies? What do they really love?

Thanks for all the help and support, you are life savers for new border collie owners.

[Delfiina]

My dog loves to play hide-and-seek, or maybe just the part once he finds me. Although I must say, he's pretty bad at it, I don't think he uses his nose at all! I have him "stay" somewhere and once I found a spot, I say his name and he comes around looking for me. Since your pup is only 4 months old, I'm not sure if you ever get out of her sight without her following?

[simba]

My dog and I play keepaway- I know some people have issues with this so be cautious about introducing it.

 

She grabs A Thing (it has been a leaf sometimes), and I tell her I'm going to get her and roast her over a fire (big happy tone of voice), and she gambols away and runs around a table while I run after her.

 

She's pretty old now and can't run as fast as she used to, but because I stopped playing whenever I got bored, she used to be pretty good about slowing down to allow me to 'win'. This might not be good for calmness inside though.

 

More usual things are teaching her to discriminate between different toys (give them different names and use them consistently).

 

Scent games- get a pile of sticks, handle them while wearing gloves, handle one without gloves heavily, then ask her to tell the difference. Or I used to get a little of something scented, put it on an item, and ask her to find the item (meaning she couldn't rely on shape but had to grab whatever it was that had the scent on it). Let's say you have a room full of items- socks in a bowl on the floor, a ball, a newspaper, and you'd scent one of the items and get her to figure out which one. I used cinnamon but I don't know how safe that is, it's just what I used at the time.

[Sue R]

We play hide-and-seek sometimes. It's a good way to practice the "stay" and utilize the nose.

 

I like to play the shell game with Megan, and it's something that's quite her style of game. I take a tray and use (the first few times) see-through plastic cups. The first few times, it's just one cup with a treat under it. When she nudges the cup, she gets the treat. We work forward with me encouraging her until she learns to topple the cup to get the treat. The right kind of tray or surface can help with this, one that will cause the cup to topple over with the right nudge.

 

We progress to using two or more cups, one with a treat and the other(s) without. She has to select the cup with the treat in order to get it so picking the right cup to topple is self-rewarding. Finally, we progress to cups that she can't see through so that she has to either use her nose to find the treat or follow the cup with the treat as I switch it around (very slowly and easily at first) with the empty cups.

 

My boys would not find this game at all to their liking but it's something she likes, and it's very one-on-one.