This Newf Reviews: Your People!

In the past, I have reviewed treats and toys to drive most dogs wild...and a lot of those toys are designed to entertain a dog without any assistance from the dog's people.

But we were thinking tonight...the truth of the matter is, we would trade ALL of our treats, and ALL of our toys, to keep our people! A lot of our favorite games we cannot play by ourselves - or even with each other. We need our people to play them. And so for this episode of This Newf Reviews, we will be writing down our favorite games that we play with our mama and papa - and we suggest that you guys invite your mama and/or papa to play them as well.

THIS NEWF REVIEWS: YOUR PEOPLE (AND THEIR OPPOSABLE THUMBS)

Insert your person's image above!

We thought we might include a list, and a description, of some of our favorite dog-people games.

1. Hide and Go Seek

One person stays with the dog and distracts him while the other person, with a pocket full of treats, hides somewhere in the house...if your dog has never played this game before, you don't want to hide too well at first. Anyway, once you've hidden call your dog once or twice while the person who stayed with the dog encourages the dog to go find you. You may have to add little noises as the dog gets closer to you - and then once your dog does find you make a HUGE deal of him and give him a few cookies. Meanwhile, the person who stayed with him before has hidden! Now encourage the dog to go find the other person...repeat until everyone is exhausted.

Alternatively if you're on your own, teach your dog a solid sit/wait and then go hide. Release him from the wait from your hiding place with a shouted "Okay (name), Come!" and then hunker down until he finds you. Makes a good rainy day game.

2. Find a Toy

A similar game to the one above except with a toy or treat instead of a person. Use your dog's favorite toy for this game to really amp up the excitement. Show the toy or treat to your dog, and then leave in a sit/stay or sit/wait or with a helper. Then go hide the toy or treat. Start out in easy-to-find places so the dog builds confidence, and gradually work up to harder locations. I like to find my giant duckie stuffed animal, for example. Mama will hide it on window sills, behind pillows on beds, in closets etc and I will go crazy trying to find it! Sometimes she has to give me a hint - in water rescue there's a hand directional gesture the people use to show the dog what direction the retrieval object is in - she uses that to show me where I should be headed to find the toy. You can also probably teach your dog the words "warmer" and "colder" like kids use when they play the same game!

3. Plastic Bottle Soccer

What you do is, you save a bunch of soda bottles, take off the caps, the labels and the plastic ringy thing on them, and then throw them on the floor. Start kicking one. Most dogs will want to chase the one that you are playing with...as soon as your dog goes after that one, starting playing with a different one. They will realize that you are interested in a different bottle quickly, and come after that one. Then switch to another! We usually play with three or four bottles. Make sure you remove bottles that have been squished or chewed into!

4. Newfie In the Middle

A game that is almost cruel - mama and papa throw a toy back and forth between them while I run like mad to try and get it. Every so often they let it fall and go veeeeeery slowly to get it so that I can latch onto it first. I love this game!

5. Fetch

You guys know how to play this - but what you might not know is that it is a primary skill for a water rescue dog to learn. It is important that a WRD retrieve an article that the handler indicates, and that the dog return it to the handler's hand, not dropping it. Not only do I play regular fetch, but I must also play 'wait - okay go get it' fetch with multiple objects set out and only one indicated by hand signal! There are ways to make fetch much more challenging for your dog - and using his brain will help tire him out even more than just physical activity!