A new board game is exciting over 200,000 dog owners on TikTok – because you can play it with your fluffy friend. But you can also easily make it at home.
What kind of game is it? The game that went viral on TikTok is The Dog’s Best Friend Game
by West Paw from the USA. The box includes several intelligence games that you can play with your dog.
Included are, among others:
- Find treats under cups
- Leave treats for a timed period (Training)
- Hide and seek
- Jumping over obstacles
The various games train your dog mentally and are a nice pastime that includes your four-legged friend. You can play it with up to eight people aged eight and up and up to two dogs.
All games can also be played as a single person with only one dog. However, the competitive aspect of the games is eliminated: With multiple teams, players also compete to see who can complete specific challenges faster or better.
200,000 dog owners love it on TikTok
How did it become known? The game gained instant popularity through a TikTok video: The dog account vegasthecotonpoo
showcases it in a 53-second video. The dog Vegas attempts the classic challenge of finding a treat under a cup.
The objective is to set up three cups and hide a treat under one where the dog can see it well. The cups are then shuffled, and the dog has to guess where the reward now is.
The TikTok star dog Vegas watches the shuffling of the cups closely. Unfortunately, the dog makes a mistake right on the first attempt. On the second try, however, he succeeds with the treat.
If you’re not just into furry noses in real life, this video game with dogs might be something for you:
No box needed – Here’s how you can easily recreate the games
How can you make it yourself? The Dog’s Best Friend Game
actually encompasses many classic intelligence games for dogs in one box, which are very easy to recreate at home. What you’ll have to do, if you find the board game exciting: Unfortunately, the game is not available for purchase in Germany.
Here are a few of the games included for you to play at home:
- Searching for treats under cups
- Get party cups, for example, the red ones for beer pong or paper ones for picnics, and your dog’s favorite treats. Set up three cups and place the reward visibly under one cup for your dog.
Difficulty level 1 is when you don’t move the cups. The more you shuffle and the more cups you use, the more complicated and challenging the game becomes.
- Get party cups, for example, the red ones for beer pong or paper ones for picnics, and your dog’s favorite treats. Set up three cups and place the reward visibly under one cup for your dog.
- Leaving treats for a timed period
- Place a treat in front of your dog. He or she may only take it when you give the signal – for example,
Ok
orNow
; whatever you’re used to. Set a timer to define the practice time. The longer the dog has to wait, the harder it is for him or her.
If you want to give your dog a visual cue for the waiting time, just like with the mat in the board game, you can recreate the mat. For this, you need paper or colored cardstock. Each color symbolizes a different waiting time. Write this on the respective color to ensure that you do not vary the waiting time for each color – the dog should be able to associate specific waiting times with the colors.
Then place the treat on the respective color according to the waiting time.
- Place a treat in front of your dog. He or she may only take it when you give the signal – for example,
- Hide and seek
- Let your dog wait in a corner of your home or have someone hold the dog. Take one of his toys with you – ideally one that squeaks.
Once you are hidden, call your dog who now has to find you. If your four-legged friend takes too long, you can provide hints with the squeaky toy.
The larger your home and the area to be searched, the more complex the game will be.
- Let your dog wait in a corner of your home or have someone hold the dog. Take one of his toys with you – ideally one that squeaks.
- Jumping over obstacles
- For this, you need the cups from the first game presented – just many more of them. Stack them like a card house to create a small wall. The challenge is that your dog should jump over it, either together with you or alone.
After each successful leap, add another row of cups to the existing wall. The game continues until a wall height can no longer be jumped over, or until you no longer wish to continue.
- For this, you need the cups from the first game presented – just many more of them. Stack them like a card house to create a small wall. The challenge is that your dog should jump over it, either together with you or alone.
All games can be played alone, with two people, or with several others. If you have more than three people and more than one dog, it’s worth forming competitive teams. For the competitive aspect, you can set timers (whoever finds the treat under the cups the fastest wins
) or set up trials.
If you’ve managed to tire out your real four-legged friend who no longer wants cuddles, you can of course also cuddle virtual animals. We have a list of 5 RPGs you should play if you want to cuddle animals.
