You may not be an Olympic athlete heading to the games this year, but why not give your dog the chance to go for gold?
ith Rio on the horizon, we at CatDogFish want to make sure you know how to host the best Doggy Olympics for you and all of your pet-owning friends. You can choose to keep score however you want, so long as you’re not that guy who ruins it for everyone by getting way too into it. Without further ado, let’s go over the events.
Level of Difficulty: Easy But Fun
Event #1: Frisbee
The objective of this game is to see which human/dog pair can get the highest catch streak. Once you and your pooch drop a frisbee, you’re out! Set a minimum length the frisbee has to be thrown to keep it fair. Depending on how much yard space you have, pairs can go one at a time or all together.
Event #2: Treat Toss
Humans line up on one side, dogs across. This is like frisbee, but a little more tasty. You’ll need to set up markers ahead of time. With every treat your dog catches, the humans need to step back to the next marker. The team that makes the farthest distance wins!
Event #3: Talent Show
This event is excellent to finally show off all those hours of training you and your pooch have clocked together. You’ll need judges for this one. Each human and their dog get to perform 3 different tricks, all to be scored out of 10. The pair with the highest score after 3 tricks wins. Make it fun by making scoring placards to be held up by the judges on the spot.
Event #4: Mock Awards
Better than participation ribbons, this event is strictly for laughs. Awards given out will of course depend on the course of events throughout the day. The more outrageous the awards the better. Ideas: “The Next Air-Bud”, “At Least You’re Cute”, “Butter Paws”, etc.
There's no way I make this grab
Level of Difficulty: Prior Training Recommended
Event #5: Obstacle Course
Have all four-pawed participants go through a trial run to get used to the course. For the actual event, the dog with the best time wins. Because agility courses take a lot of training for your dog to master, you may need to set down your drink and lead your pooch through the course on a leash or with food. Bonding! Exercise!
You can make your own obstacles with a few simple materials, or you can buy everything already put together. We don’t want you to break the bank so we recommend choosing a few rather than building a full course.
These obstacles can all be made out of hardware store materials and items found around the house (like PVC pipes, pool noodles, hula hoops):
For pre-built obstacles: http://www.dogagilityshop.com/
Event #6: Relay Race
The size of the teams for this event will depend on how many dogs are participating. Choose to use the hurdles you made for the obstacle course, or if that didn’t go so well, leave them out for this one. Other than that, all you’ll need is a tennis ball for each team; the next dog in line can’t take off until it has been given the tennis ball from its teammate coming through. We realize that this one may be tricky to organize, but it’s worth a shot!
3...2...1... LIFT OFF
Let the games begin!
We want to see your pictures from the big event! Share them on twitter and use the hashtag #GoForGold.
