Family Game Night

I mentioned once that me and my dogs do family night things. I talked about movie night once, and I mentioned playing Bingo. We have "family night" every so often. No set day, it's just when we decide to do it, we do it.

One of their favorite is Family Game Night where (as you probably already guessed) we play games. Like Family Movie Night, this requires a trip to the local Zip-E-Mart to acquire snacks: chips, sodas, beef jerky, etc.

My dogs got interested in games after seeing the "Dogs Playing Poker" painting, and decided that they wanted to play poker too. After teaching them the basics, we attempted to play a game, but found that lacking opposable thumbs it was difficult to hold the cards. We were forced to abandon poker (and any other card) game as a form of recreation, but did find a few games that they could play and enjoy, which led to our having Family Game Nights.

My dogs like to play games. Regular readers of this blog are fully aware of Macky Rae's obsession with Zombies and an online game called ZombieLand™. And Sarah and Freedom regularly play gin rummy, although they use Rummikub tiles instead of playing cards.

One of the games they all three enjoy is dominos, although we play a simpler version because the dogs do not have the best math skills, and are a bit confused on the concept of "multiples of five."

Macky Rae especially likes the game, and has learned to SLAP dominos on the table - much like you do when playing in the county jail. I suspect he learned this from one of our neighbors, who I suspect has spent a bit of time in the county jail on several occasions.

I taught the dogs how to play called Chinese Pig. Lacking hands, dice throwing was a bit problematic. Initially, they would throw the dice by picking them up (one at a time) in their mouths and dropping them onto the table. This was a bit slow, and the dice were quickly covered in dog spit (which was not fun when it was my turn to throw). But the main issue was , during a close game, Macky Rae got excited and accidently swallowed one of the dice - leaving the outcome of the game unresolved.

Eventually, the di passed. After a couple of days, Macky Rae came inside and proudly announced that he had "number two-ed a four." This meant that he had won the game we had started (and failed to finish) a few days before.

In order to resolve the spitty dice problem and prevent future dice consumption, I went online and ordered some pop-o-matic dice poppers.

Six? Chinese Pig only needs three dice!

We also play Farkle, which requires six dice. 

You probably remember the Pop-O-Matic thingies that came with Sorry, Trouble, Headache, or any of those games you played as a kid. They were designed so you (as a kid) didn't lose the dice.

Or accidently eat them.

The dogs enjoy these, as all they need to do is press down on the bubble with their paw and pop the dice. And I don't have to handle spitty dice.

They are fond of board games as well. Macky likes checkers, and Freedom is learning Chess. Sarah is fond of Parcheesi.

On of the board games my dogs like is monopoly, although they have their own rules. I will get to that in a moment. They got interested in Monopoly because of the Micky D's contest - game-piece collecting is very popular with my dogs, and we were visiting McDonalds daily while the monopoly game was going on, collecting game pieces, and sticking them onto the game board. We didn't win anything significant, the most valuable prize we won was free fries (super sized), but the dogs thought this was awesome - free fries!!!

We had a problem the first time, before we ever started playing.

No, nobody ate the dice

The first problem encountered was game pieces. There was an argument over who got to be "the dog."

Actually, it was a fight.

I tried making them take turns, each one being "the dog" on a different day. This didn't work, because the other two were mad at the one who was "the dog."

And this eventually started a fight.

So I told them nobody was going to be "the dog" and they had to choose another token.

And this made them made at me.

Freedom got the shoe, Sarah used the thimble, and Macky Rae had the Race Car - and insisted on making "vroom-vroom" noises ever time he moved his piece.

Finally, I had to go online and buy more dogs tokens. I found some on eBay, and bought enough for everyone. We then went to the hobby store and each of the dog picked a color to paint there dogs.

The dog piece is the most popular monopoly playing piece, not only with dogs but with people as well - according to a recent survey. The car was second. Monopoly has retired a few tokens, the most recent is the Iron. And they added some, the most recent addition to the line-up is the cat - which is not popular at our house.

I mentioned "dog" rules: I came home one afternoon and found the dogs engaged in a game of monopoly, which was fine until I noticed a few irregularities. The first thing I noticed was that someone had taken a sharpie and changed Free Parking to Free Barking. Similarly, Jail was crossed out, and replaced with The Pound. I also noticed hotels on the Railroad spaces, and like a fool I asked.

ME: Why is there a hotel on the Reading Railroad

MACKY: That is not a hotel, it is a train depot.

ME: And the house on Electric Company?

MACKY RAE: It's a power station

Scrabble is also popular with my dogs, especially with Macky Rae who slaps the tiles down when he plays his letters. We make allowances for spelling - after all, they are dogs. Freedom and Sarah are fairly good at spelling, mostly. Macky Rae has issues with the [C] and the [K], and words like [K][A][R] and [K][A][N][D][L][E] are frequent.

There are dog rules as well. For example: the [Q] is assumed to have a [U] (in fact, a "u" was added with the sharpie) so [Q][E][E][N] for "queen" is valid.

Q is a rather odd letter. Maybe we should do a survey or something, and maybe retire the Q from out alphabet and replace it with a more usefull letter

Another "dog" rule is double points for "dog" words: Bark, Woof, Canine, Fetch, Treat, etc. "Cat" and other feline-words are prohibited.

As I have mentioned, we have a fourth member of our pack: Reba, who now 6 month old. Reba is learning to be a dog, mainly by following the example of the other dogs. She enjoys playing games, although being a pup she has not mastered various concepts yet, but she does faily well at some of the simpler games.

We were teaching her dominoes last night (and Macky was teaching her to slap them on the table). This was going well, until she got excited during a game and ate the 4:2 domino...

Chinese Pig is played similar to regular pig, but with three dice. "Oriental" Dice are preferable, but regular dice can be used.
 

Asian dice are traditionally printed with

the 1 and the 4 in red.

Each turn, a player throws the dice, and scores for each [1] or [4] he throws. After each throw he may bank his points (and end his turn), or continue throwing for more points. A player must score at least one [1] or [4] each throw. If he fails to throw a [1] or a [4] he has "pigged" and loses his points for that turn. (Points earned on and banked on previous turns are kept).

First throw immunity: If a player fails to throw a [1] or a [4] on his first throw, he may continue to rethrow the dice until a [1] or [4] appears, after which if he fails to throw a [1] or [4] he is pigged and losses his points.

The first player to reach 100 points wins the game