Tic-Tac-Dog

We had our last training night for the summer at Brian and Nancy's house.  We had nine dogs, six black and three yellow Labs.  We made it a fun night with Chris rolling big dice to determine what commands our dogs would have to do.  Sit/Stays for 5 minutes, down/stays for 3 minutes.  Then Brian drew out a tic-tac-toe game and it was on.  The blacks against the yellows, with one exception, we converted a black into a yellow to even out the game.

The rules were to either sit or down your dog in a square.  Then leave your dog by themselves, telling them to stay as others brought their dogs to complete the game.  If your dog got up, you had to remove them and that square became open again.  At one point we had 7 dogs in the squares and once one got up, they all decided to leave.  So we had to start over.  The blacks won the sit game.  The second game they were all in a down and no one won that game but we had nine dogs all in a down/stay in a tic-tac-toe game.  Pretty cool.

A Sit/Stay

The game started with Sit/Stays:

Starting the game

Dylan in the middle square

You can see the dogs looking at their handlers as they implore them to stay

The Blacks win as Brian gives them the release signal

Then it was on to the Down/Stays:

Seven of the nine, the black Lab up top is really a yellow.

All nine dogs in Down/Stays...Amazing!

Ended the evening with cookies and lemonade for the puppy raisers and doggy bone treats for the pups.  It was a great night and we'll miss seeing our friends each Wednesday night.  But we will still be meeting monthly and at GDA as well.