Games Cairns Play

[Cindy]

What games do you play with your Cairn? I have tried to teach mine to fetch but we are struggling with that b/c she does not want to let go of her ball/toy once she has it. She loves it when I kick big balls around on the ground. She loves to chase them and then runs back to me so I can kick them some more. She loves to chase her toys/balls but, again, doesn't bring them back. She likes the "Go Find It!" game where I through treats around in the grass or on the floor so she can sniff around and find them.

What games do you like to play with your dog?

[Jessica H]

Scooter loves playing fetch but his FAVORITE game is soccer. He loves his soccer ball.

[thekabbott]

My Mahle looooves to play fetch with her mini-tennis ball. She will seriously play for an hour if you don't stop her. Her newest frenzy is when we stop playing with her and she's not ready... her toy will magically ;-) end up somewhere she cannot reach it (ie- under the kitchen table, couch, or in between the footboard of the bed and the mattress, and will bark, whine and dig until you get it for her... then it's game on until she gets bored... which is never soon.

[Malcolm's Dad]

Malcolm loves to play fetch. He does bring the ball back but does not let it go. So I act like I don't want the ball anymore, then he drops it. He prefers the mini tennis balls too, I have regular tennis balls but he won't touch those if the mini ball is out. Another ball he likes is a rubber baseball, but those don't last very long. Lately a squirrel has been hanging out around our tree, that drives Malcolm nuts. Forget the games when that squirrel is here, he wants to get that squirrel.

[OzGirl]

Roxy loves to play chase, I chase her, making lots of silly noises then when she stops running I turn and run from her and she chases me. This is usually played inside the house (very naughty of me, we always told the kids "don't run in the house")

They both also like to play fetch, but they like to play tug with each other instead of bringing the toy back to me.

[SparkyJonesMom]

Sparky loves to chase after a tennis ball when I throw it, but he doesn't understand the concept of fetch. Once he has that ball, you can forget it. I have to wait until he gets bored with it and then I'll throw it again. It's really embarrassing at the dog park when he chases other dog's balls, and then their owners try to get it back and they can't. I think he might like the soccer ball, though. I'll have to get a cheap one for him.

[avlsarah]

Maxwell's favorite game is tug, which incorporates well into fetch, actually. I'm not too fond of the concept of having him go get the ball and lovingly drop it at my feet - it seems very contrary to anything he would willingly want to do! So, we play with two balls, or two ropes. I throw one, he goes and gets it, we tug for a while and play. Max always wins tug. Then I pull out the other toy, wave it around and get his attention and, dontcha know, its always just way more exciting than what he has - because he doesn't have it! So he'll drop whatever he's got and I can throw the toy I'm holding and in the meantime exchange it for what he had and the game just keeps going. Just playing tug works the same way. We tug for a while, Maxwell always wins and, when I'm ready to tug some more, I whip out my other toy and we start again.

Max also has a partially deflated soccer ball that he likes for me to run around with and play keep away. He tries to get it from me, but he's usually too afraid to grab it so the game goes on as long as I can keep running.

Maxwell also likes playing chase; he growls and barks at me and tries to get me to go where he wants.

Inside, Max likes to rough house on the floor, but sometimes this can cause him to get a little too excited. He also likes for me to put his toys in a space where he can't quite reach them and he'll spend a good long while trying to get them out. And he likes any kind of puzzle toy involving food like the Buster Cube and the Hol-ee roller.

[beccadiane374]

Tanner loves to play fetch & I guess he had some sort of natural instinct to bring the ball back to me. However, he doesn't release quite as easily. So...I usually gather up all of his balls that we play fetch with, so when he runs back to me with, say, the red one in his mouth, I wave the blue one in the air & he'll drop the red one & then chase the blue one. I've been giving the command "drop it" as soon as I wave the blue one, just to reinforce that command. With all of those balls (they're all small cloth balls), he'll play by himself, too, just chasing them around the floor, trying to get at least 2 of 'em in his mouth at a time. He does like tug, too, but not nearly as much as fetch, 'cause he's just a ball fanatic. We do also tend to play "chase" in the house, especially when it's rainy & we can't do so much walking outside.

[Idaho Cairns]

Any ball chasing and fetching for the puppy. For Sammi, keeping the puppy's favorite ball captive is the most fun!

[Sandi16]

Louie loves, loves, loves fetch and will always willingly get the ball and "throw" it back to us. If he doesn't get it close enough I say "get teh ball" and he grabs it and rolls it toward me, anything it takes for me to throw it again. There is a spot in my living room where we keep all the balls and when he's feeling playful, he'll come over, roll around, making grunting noises to get your attention, then when he has it, he runs to the spot. We have to leave all the balls up though, because he can easily become obsessed with them, and will spend his whole day fretting over a ball. He rolls it under stuff and freaks out, refuses to eat etc.

He also enjoys tugging games, and wrestling when we're on the bed or couch. He doesn't enjoy it when we're both on the floor though. Don't know why.

[DawnandTuk-tuk]

Tuk loves soccer too. He also likes to chase golf balls around on the tile, we don't let him chew them though (he won't really fetch tennis balls). He also likes to play his own little version of the doggie pool cannon ball. When we're in the backyard he'll get the run-abouts and then run and totally jump into the doggie pool making a huge splash! Makes me wish we had a real pool for him to jump into, I'd bet he'd do an awesome cannon ball into one of those! I think he must tuck his legs up a little to get such a big splash out of it cause the pool's not that deep, he's too funny with that pool.

[Jetti]

Paco is obsessed with balls fetch and catch, just like Sandi describes. The next best thing is chasing the cat and he loves to "kill" his stuffed animals too - know them by name and brings them to us. Cute and intelligent they are!!

[Annette]

Sophie favorite game is soccer. She has a somewhat deflated soccer ball that is as old as can be but she won't play with any other ball. She cannot get out of the door fast enough.

[Autumn & Lola]

We got Molly almost 3 months ago, at 13 months old. She knew quite a few commands already and loved to play fetch. She drops whatever she is carrying at my feet *most* of the time on her own, and all the time when I say, "Drop it". The funny thing is, I will start off with 4 or 5 toys, throwing them, and she will just pick one that she'll fetch repeatedly for that session. She will ignore the other toys, and she changes which one she'll decide to fetch each time we play!

We got her a soccer ball but she doesn't seem that interested in it. She'll butt it around with her nose at times but that's it. She *loves* the broom. She'll attack it and growl at it and would play for an hour if I kept it up. Mostly she just wants to run around with us, and she always lasts longer than us middle-aged folks!

She also loves the tissue box. If I let her, she'll get a huge kick out of ripping each one out of the box, throwing it into the air, and then "killing" the tissue and ripping it to shreds.

[Hagar]

Renny's favorite game is what I call "treasure hunt". If the thinks I'm not paying enough attention to him, he will take a toy, usually a squeaky ball or rawhide bone and "hide" it. Then I have to go find it and give it back to him. Sometimes he will leave it in plain sight in another room. Other times he will get pretty creative and hide it under a piece of furniture or in a corner where it's hard to see it. One time he stuck a ball in a trash can and I didn't find it until I emptied it several days later. He will keep this up non-stop for as long as a half hour at a time.

Outdoors, he has never quite caught on to the game of fetch. He will chase a thrown ball and bring it back to me, but he won't drop it. I have to take it away from him so I can throw it again. About 15 minutes is his limit at fetching. When he gets tired of it, he wll chase the ball, but not bring it back.

[josie&holly]

Holly loves it when in garden I purpose tread on one of her squeaky toys, she dashes over and grabs the toy and tears around the garden and then comes and stands in front of me. I then have to tug it off her and throw it, so she can go collect it and tear round the garden again. This can go on fotr about 10 minutes. She has not grasped that if she dropped the toy in front of me I could still throw it for me! But no, she likes me to get it off her..............

10 mths ago when she came to me she had never played with toys [she is 5 and half now], as the breeder did not give Cairns toys - he said they destroyed them! so it has taken her a while to enjoy the idea of play but now she will play on own but she does like me to play with her. And, actually some of her toys she has had since August and they are still standing up to being shaken, bounced etc.

[sheila and Misty]

They play fetch too but the favborite is definately them teasing and chasing each other!! I use to play-IIII"MMM gonnnnnna GET YOU! and I would chase Misty then she would chase me...now when I say that Misty chases Toby then Toby chases Misty through the garden around the bushes etc. (they dont include me anymore).