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Hi all, Just wondering what kind of thinking games you play with your pups, to exercise the mind. We've been playing lots of 'find it' by having Hoku down-stay on his mat, we go and hide a toy, and then have him find it. He loves it, and I want more thinking games like this, so we don't 'wear out' this one out (he gets board quickly :rolleyes: ). He really is getting good with finding things with his nose. We also do lots of simple trick training and some fetch (have the same problem that he wont bring it back right to us, so that game often ends quickly), and hide and seek. What are your faves?

 

Kristin, Hoku the happy and Gussy the great

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I ask him to bring specific toys, by name, even from other rooms, and he loves to show off and bring them to me! He knows at least a dozen toys by name, he knew more, but some toys don't last too long :rolleyes:

 

Sometimes, if I asked for a toy he's not in the mood for, he would go touch it, or grab it and drop it midway, then get the toy he realy wants to play with, saying "I found yours, now let's play with this one!".

 

If it would be after him, he would have us play fetch with him non stop in the house! After the 20th time tossing the same toy, we kindda get bored and have to take the toy away from him :D There's only so much slimy stuffed squirell I can take on my hands and feet! Then he starts crying for the abducted toys........

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ex meandbadge.

Anda, badger and me play that game alot , i have toys all over the house and as you say he knows the names of all of them, we have to make names up, he loves soft toys so it is names like , ducky, bumble and chick, of course ball, his old tail wags as he looks for them and sometimes if he brings the wrong one i make him go right back and get the right one, he loves the game and i get him to bring all his toys in from the garden so i dont have to lift a finger!!!

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I hide treats in the living room. She knows most of the hiding places by now, though, and I want to be able to watch her without running through the house after her and getting on her nerves, so sometimes I use cardboard boxes and stuff like that as "treasure boxes" that she can either open or destroy.

 

A memory game we play outside: I ask her to lie down & stay, throw the ball, then I lead her away from the ball and do some other things with her (heeling, play-fighting, whatever). Then I ask her "where's the ball?" and sometimes she remembers. If she doesn't, it's still a good "search" game (she knows what pointing with a finger means, but it's not very accurate yet).

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All I have to do to play mind games with Meg is say...."Where's Sox?" - the cat. I ask this when we're outside and I know that Sox is inside. Meg spends about a half and hour looking for her all over the property. When she isn't looking I let Sox out. Heh heh heh heh ......

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I've found any kind of multiple part tricks (like crawl on the ground, groan, and then lie flat after a "bang" or getting a drink from a cooler--stuff like that that you have to chain together from several independent behaviors). My dogs mostly just eat the training up no matter what it is. For a while, I had a weekly plan for Pippin--a new trick every week (I never could get her to roll over, though). My dogs also love the Karon Pryor game of just clicking some random action into a new behavior. OUr mutt, Renzo, learned "wash your face" this way (he licks both sides of his mouth).

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Originally posted by badgerboy:

he loves soft toys so it is names like , ducky, bumble and chick...

I hear you! I have to be "creative" sometimes if he has more than one toy of the same animal. That's why we have "Cow" (well, this one he knows in Romanian, so it's "Vaca" :rolleyes: ) for one toy, and "Moo" for another one! And we have "Sheepy" and "Oitza" (again, Romanian diminutive for Sheep :D ). Two distinct sheep toys, and he knows which one is which.

And we have "Monkey" and "Gorilla" :D

It's funny but I find myself racking my brains before handing him a new toy, what name to call it, especially when it came to a fluffy fuzzy stuffed ball. It couldn't be ball, so it became "Fluffy" :D

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