Hide and Seek

My husband has taught Gracie (our dog) to play hide & seek with him. Amazing how it works. He makes Gracie sit and stay in the laundry room. I count to 25, then tell Gracie to "Go find daddy."

Out comes Gracie, most often with her nose to the ground. Around the house she goes, peeking into all the rooms till she finds the most special person in her little doggy-world. During her search, we can hear her collar and tags jingling throughout the house. My husband has tried to trick her, by walking into a room and then out of it and hiding in another room. He has taken one of his slippers and left it in one room while he hides in another. Gracie is never fooled.

Gracie alternates between sniffing the carpeting as she walks around and standing very still in the middle of a room and just listening. You can actually see her brows knit up in concentration. She keeps a serious look on her face all the while, then explodes into a mass of tail-wagging, smiling dog when she finds my husband.

The most amazing part of this little game is how seriously Gracie takes all of it, and she will go from one end of the house to the other and back again until she finds my husband. Somehow, she knows the game isn't over till she finds him. And he doesn't give her a treat or a dog biscuit as a reward...... her sole 'reward' is finding him and getting a big hug.

One night after Gracie and my husband finished their games, my husband told me to hide so he could watch Gracie go through her routines as she looked for me. So I went to find a hiding place while my husband made Gracie sit in the laundry room while he counted to 25.

Off I went to hide. I was more anxious for my husband to see Gracie's method of finding me than I was for her to actually see where I was hiding.

As I sat in my hiding place, I heard my husband say "Go find mommy, Gracie... go find mommy!"

Dead silence. Not a peep.... no jingling sounds of Gracie's collar and tags.

I sat and waited. Again, I heard my husband say "Go find mommy, Gracie."

More silence. Then I finally heard my husband calling out to me: "You may as well come out. She's not moving."

What? No hide and seek for me?

I came out and there was Gracie, staring up adoringly at my husband. He told me: "She wouldn't go looking for you... she just sat there looking up at me."

Oh well. No hide and seek for me. Gracie looks for her daddy when she wants to play. She only looks for me when she wants food.