The Games People Play. With Dogs.

I invented a random game today, where I hop around in wacky bounding circles with the dogs, just outside the house. They really seem to like this game, but I hadn't realized that Ian already has an entire repertoire of games that he plays with the dogs:

The best one works as follows:

"You try to get your paws on the other dogs' and at the same time move your paws away."

In other words, get down on all-fours with the dogs and play "Paw Whack-A-Mole"... This sport, it turns out, bears the name of "Hand Shuttle Paw-Tag."

But there are others, such as "Invisible Tag," where Ian and Golden take turns being "it" without all the formalities of conventional tag.

Ian was very happy to add the tradition, which already contained at least four sports prior to today's innovation.

(February 20, 2012)