Dogs are a lot like kids -- they don't just want to play, they want to play with you. Interactive play is a fantastic way to spend quality time with your dog, give him mental and physical challenges, and cement the bond of respect between you. With some guidelines, it can also be a great way to reinforce the lessons your dog is learning in obedience training. For a wonderful book on play, check out Play With Your Dog by Pat Miller (Dogwise Publishing, 2008).

Here's an example of how I have used play to solve an obedience problem: one of my clients has a terrier who used to harass her mercilessly with barking and jumping any time she tried to lie down on the bed. In a situation like this, you could teach the dog the "down" command (which we did) or crate the dog, but neither approach really gets at the heart of the problem, which is that the dog is overflowing with energy, while the owner has physical limitations that prevent her from romping around with it. So we set up a play routine that allows my client to give her dog a workout without exhausting herself:

1. My client ties a scarf to her bed post, and lures her dog to jump over it 10 times.
2. She plays "Food Relay" with her dog by throwing 10 treats down the hall, and asking her dog to run back to her in between each treat.
3. She turns on some music and gets her dog to do the "dancing bear" step for 10 seconds.
4. She hides several pieces of kibble in the big tub of socks we set up in her bedroom, and the dog gets to dig through and find them.

By the end of that routine, which takes no more than 5 minutes to finish, my client can lie down, and her dog heads straight for the dog bed, all tuckered out, and happy that it got to show off its terrier skills.

Here are some of my favorite games -- many of them work well with cats too, believe it or not:

This is a great way to give your dog some exercise when you need to be still yourself. Call your dog to you, get her interested in a treat, and then throw it as far as you can. Let her run and get it, then call her back to you, and chuck another treat in another direction. This is a good game to play if your dog hasn't mastered the fundamentals of fetch, but you still want to give her a good hard run. Add an additional physical challenge by starting at the top of a hill or a staircase and throwing the treat down, so your dog has to run up and down each time (but don't do this if your dog is prone to joint pain or hip dysplasia -- ask your vet for details). You can use this game to reinforce your obedience work by adding "sit" and "stay" commands before throwing, and asking your dog to wait for you to release her with a "Go!" before chasing the treat.

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This is complex variation of fetch that adds layers of challenges for herding dogs and retrievers. It's a good way to let your Heeler or Border Collie show off his skills while keeping the cats and kids safe and sound.

• Gather several toys. Ask your dog for a sit and stay, throw the first toy, and identify it with a single word that you only use for that toy, like, "red," "squeak," "tennis," or "plush." When your dog has returned with first toy, give him a click and a treat, and throw the second one, identifying it by name. Continuing until your dog has returned all the toys.
• For the next level, throw the second toy very quickly after he drops the first, and only click and treat at the end of the sequence.
• For the next challenge, throw the second toy just before your dog returns with the first. (Wait to say the name of the second toy until your dog has dropped the first.) Now your dog has to concentrate on two tasks: dropping the first toy, and taking off for the second one. If your dog runs after the second toy before dropping the first one, call him back to you, ask him to "drop," then say the name of the second toy and stare at it to get him interested in it again. When he's almost back with toy number two, throw the third, and so on.
• When your dog gets good at this level, throw the second toy before your dog has picked up the first. (Again, wait to say the same of the second toy until after your dog has returned the first.) You can keep advancing this level by throwing the toys in more rapid succession.
• For an extreme challenge for a very smart dog, ask your dog to remain in a "stay" while you all toys in different directions. Then say the name of a toy ("Tennis!") and get your dog to bring back each one by name. Click and treat after each success. This one will take some time and patience, but it's incredibly impressive when your dog gets it! Asking your dog to use his mind and concentration like this will tire him much more than fetch alone.

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This is a variation on Food Fetch that works especially well for hyperactive terriers and cats. Our cat Cheddar Monster loves this game -- he crouches down and gets a wild look in his eyes like he is firing up his inner predator. Pick a hard surface inside on which to play. A hallway with a hardwood floor is ideal, but the kitchen, bathroom or laundry room will work fine too. Take a piece of your pet's kibble in your hand, and slide it fast along the floor - he will chase it and eat it. While he is still down the hall, try to slide another piece of kibble past him, so he has to trap it with his paws. Cheddar Monster likes to position himself at the end of the hall facing us, hunker down like Wayne Gretsky and give us a hard stare. When we send a piece of kibble sailing down the hall, he tries to smack it with one of his paws, which usually sends it ricocheting off the walls, giving him three or four opportunities to pounce at every piece. This is a great way to simulate the way he would stalk and hunt his prey in the wild. For an added challenge, put some pots on the floor to act like bumpers in a pinball game.

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I came up with this game as a way to keep my office supplies safe from our cat Ginny. I have an old-fashioned desk with wooden slots where I keep envelopes and Post-its, and when I'm working, Ginny loves to paw out the contents of every slot. (She's following her instinct to hunt in holes for mice, baby rabbits and birds.) Here's how to play: stuff a wad of toilet paper into one end of the toilet paper tube to block it off, and then drop some treats down the other end. Hold the tube up toward your pet, and help them figure out what to do by getting her interested in a treat, and then resting it right at the inside edge of the tube. Within a few minutes, she'll figure out how to reach down the tube and get out the rest. Ginny quickly figured out that if she grabbed the wad of toilet paper at the end and pulled it through the tube, all the treats fall out at once. That discovery led to another variation of this game, which I call the "toilet paper parfait", where I alternate one square of toilet paper and one treat in layers all the way up the tube. That takes Ginny a good five minutes to empty... keeping my office supplies safe for another day. For larger dogs whose paws won't fit in the tube, you can put some treats in the middle of the tube and block off both ends with paper, so the dog has to figure out how to pull out the paper or tear up the tube to get the treats out.

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This is great game for dogs who love to shred paper. Wrap two or three pieces of kibble in a sheet of newspaper (or your credit card bill), throw it to your dog and say, "Shred it!" Your dog will have fun destroying the paper to get at the food inside. Start off easy with just one sheet of paper in a loose twist until your dog gets the hang of it. Then make it harder by adding more sheets of paper or twisting and crumpling it into a tight ball. This is a great way to satisfy your dog 's need to shred, while keeping your important papers safe.

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This is a wonderful game you can play with your dog inside any time. I like to play it several times in a row to increase the dog's interest and drive to find the toy in difficult locations. To start out, ask your dog to sit and stay, throw a treat or a favorite toy a short distance, and say, "Find it!" Do that a few times, making sure that she is waiting for your cue before she pops out of her sit to get the treat. Next, ask her to sit and stay while you walk across the room and place the treat in an out of the way (but still openly visible) location, for example, next to the cabinet, or in front of the sofa. When your dog masters this level, start hiding the treat or toy under the corner of the carpet or behind the sofa skirt. If your dog can't find it, just stare at the toy, but don't point or move toward it. If you are using a toy rather than a treat, try a scented toy like the Orbee Tuff Ball.

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This is a variation on "Find It", but instead of hiding just a treat, hide a treat inside a crumbled ball of newspaper, a box, or a toilet paper tube taped shut that your dog can destroy to get the treat out. This is a good game for terriers and destructive dogs that like to show off their "killing bite" -- when they grab and shake their prey (or the mail) back and forth.

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This is a game that any "nosy" dog will love, and scent hounds like coon hounds, beagles and basset hounds will really excel at it. The first time you play, hold your dog on the leash while another family member walks off and hides behind a tree. Keep one sock from your family member, hold it to your dog's nose, and say "Find ‘em!" Your dog will naturally run to reconnect with the other family member, who should greet him with lots of praise, pets and excitement. Try that a few times with different trees, until your dog gets the idea that the goal is to go to the missing person. (We don't need to teach dogs how to track a scent -- they already know how to do it. We just need to come up with a way to tell them when we want them to do it, and which scent we want them to follow.) Then, you can have your dog sit facing the other direction while your family member traces a long path to a distant hiding place. You'll be amazed at the tracking skills you never knew your dog had -- as one person said, "It's like suddenly finding out that your spouse of 20 years speaks Chinese." I had one client's coonhound track me across a large public park, around a tennis court, through a parking lot at and in between some cars within the first five minutes of teaching her this game. An added benefit to this game is that scent-driven dogs really seem fulfilled when playing this -- as though to say, "Finally! Someone understands what I'm good at!" This is also a very tiring exercise for dogs because it takes a lot of concentration. I've had a number of clients tell me that their dogs who can run nonstop for hours will conk happily out after a half hour or so of find the-family.

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If your dog loves to dig, channel that energy away from your petunias and into a constructive outlet. Set up a large plastic container at least twice as big as your dog. Outside, you can fill it with dirt; inside you can fill it with socks and rags. (Try not to use cleaning rags as they may still have fumes and residue from cleaning products.) To start off, put a piece kibble right on top, say, "Dig it!" and let your dog eat it. Then try burying some kibble or a toy partially, then completely. Get down and show your dog how to dig, if she needs the help. If you're using a tub of socks indoors, sprinkle some kibble on top, and it will naturally fall deeper and deeper as your dog digs. This is a favorite with our cats too.

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This is a fantastic game for hyper dogs, and it also doubles as a great way to teach dogs not to jump and nip when they get excited. Play this game in a low-distraction environment, with no food, toys or other dogs around. Here's how it works: with your dog in front of you, say "Go Crazy!" and start dancing and jumping around. Your active pooch will jump around with you. After a few moments, say "Freeze!" and turn into a statue. (I tuck my hands up under my chin so the dog can't nose at them.) The first time you try it, your dog probably will keep playing, and ignore that fact that you have "frozen". But eventually, he will come back and look at you to figure out what happened. The second that eye contact is made, click your clicker, and say, "Go crazy!" again. As soon as your dog figures out that it's the eye contact that makes you un-freeze and start playing again, he will start looking at your face the moment that you freeze. Most dogs pig this up in a matter of minutes. To add the no-jumping, no-nipping component, say "Freeze!" every time your dog's paws or teeth make contact with you. (Since nipping is so much more serious, I usually have a mandatory one-minute time-out for teeth.) Soon, your dog will learn to prolong the "crazy" periods by keeping his paws and teeth off you. Here's a tip: if you are dealing with a dog who has already developed a troublesome habit of jumping or nipping, when you do your "crazy", only go to a 3 out of 10 on the crazy-meter. As your dog figures out that no jumping + no nipping = more play, you can ratchet up the energy level. (Children should be supervised when playing this game with a dog that jumps or nips.)

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