Regular activity is an important component of promoting a healthy and happy lifestyle for your dog. Not only does play increase the bond between pet and owner, but mental and physical exercise relieve one of the biggest causes of problem behaviors in dogs-boredom.

In 50 Games to Play with Your Dog, discover games that are both easy to teach and fun for your canine pal. The book includes challenging mental games for indoors as well as stimulating physical games for outside the home. Learn ideas for group games that are ideal for multi-dog households and doggy play dates. Color photos fully illustrate tricks and proper training techniques, while sidebar tips for safe play feature throughout the text.

For the dog owner who wants to help his or her pet stay active and engaged, 50 Games to Play with Your Dog offers enjoyable game ideas that are appropriate for all ages and activity levels of both dog and owner.

This book introduces the owner to basic communication with the dog. Good place to start when learning how to train and entertain your pet. Gets both owner and pet excited about being able to "speak" in and respond to a common language.

My dog loves it and so do I. We are having great fun with it.

This is a thin book with nice photos that gets straight to the fun part, without philosophy or case studies. While it's true the book includes many basics, it also builds on them in a way that eventually gets to some pretty amazing results.

For example, you start with simple fetch. Not all dogs like to do this, and the book is honest about that. But if yours does, you move on to teaching the names of specific items, like fetching different toys on command. That done, you start teaching the dog to take the item to different people in the house, like take the ball to Jan, take the teddy to Mike.

(I do think these kind of complex games are going to work best with highly motivated working dogs like border collies, terriers, german sheperds, and individual mixed breeds with similar characteristics.)

What I like is that each step is made into a game, and if you're patient and like this kind of interaction with your dog, it should be a lot of fun for both of you. The book could also be a good gift for a patient 10 to 14 year old with an active young dog.

p.s. If you're looking for a bigger, more complex, more detailed tricks book, check out 101 Dog Tricks by Sundance. But that's a much more academic approach, and would be overwhelming for most kids. 50 Games to Play is a good little starter book that's more about fun. 101 Dog Tricks has advice on what to do if your dog balks at something you're trying to teach. 50 Games to Play suggests you just move on to the next thing and see if the dog likes that one better.

None of the games are well unique in this book - fetch, catch, etc. This is pretty much a waste of time.