When my husband and I got married, we received what would seem to others like an unusual gift from his older sister. Next to the beautiful hand-painted serving bowl she gave us, she included a book: “50 Games to Play with Your Dog,” by Suellen Dainty.
Jon and I didn’t own a dog, plus that’s not exactly the sort of gift one expects to receive for a wedding. However, my sister-in-law and I are close, and she knew me well enough to know that I’d wanted a dog all my life, and that I was eager to get one as soon as my husband and I could.
We married in late October and adopted Chihiro the following January. So it wasn’t long before we cracked open our new doggy game book. But that was one of the few times we have used it.
I didn’t intend this blog as a negative review of Dainty’s book. I think it’s full of clever games to play with one’s canine friend, and Chihiro has enjoyed a game or two from the book. We even found a few suggestions for useful tricks to teach her, including one called “settle,” instructing her to roll onto her side and display her belly.
We use the trick to calm Chihiro down when she’s too excited or hyper, and it works well. But other than that, we haven’t had much success with the games in the book. But I don’t think that’s Dainty’s fault.
No, I think it’s Chihiro’s. She just doesn’t seem interested in games that are too complicated, or really most games at all. We think it’s the hound in her, but Chihiro usually finds wandering around smelling things much more interesting than playing most games.
It even took me ages to teach Chihiro how to fetch. She’ll go chasing after a stick, but she either finds something else to smell once coming upon it, or decides not to bring the stick back. She figures she did all that work for it, why would she bring it to me? She wants to keep it for herself.
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I have far more luck getting my dog to play fetch inside, when I’ll toss her beloved blue rubber bone and she’ll go tearing off after it. She brings it back to me most of the time then, but still sometimes even inside she goes off to smell something instead.
I believe that the main reason Chihiro will actually play fetch inside is because it’s related to what she considers the greatest game of all: keep-away. I’ve spoken to several other dog owners, and they all agree that their dogs think keep-away is the best of all games.
No wonder Chihiro didn’t bother with most of the games in Dainty’s book; they were too elaborate for her. It seems that she, along with many other dogs, loves nothing more when she’s got her favorite toy than to clutch it in her jaws and prompt her human friends to chase her around.
I’ve never really gotten the point; you think Chihiro would want me to leave her alone to enjoy her toy in peace, but no, apparently it’s the best thing ever for me to chase her while she’s got it.
Is keep-away your dog’s favorite game, or is there another it prefers to play?
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