Ages 8 and up

Players 2 to 5

Playing Time 30 minutes

Grab a leash and get ready to walk the dogs. In the game Walk the Dogs, players collect dogs trying to get either 5 in a row or to score the most dog points. The game is easy to learn and can be a great way to help younger children with counting skills.

Walk the Dogs consists of 63 miniature plastic replicas of different dog breeds. Take all the dogs and place then head to tail in a curvy line in the middle of the playing area. There is a deck of cards. Shuffle those and give each player two cards. The deck can be placed inside one of the curved lines of the dogs as long as it's easy for everyone to reach it.

On a player's turn, he will draw a card from the deck. Then he will play a card. The basic cards will have the number of dogs to take from the line and which end of the line to get those dogs from. Yellow cards allow players to choose one dog from the front and the back of the line. Red cards show how many dogs to get from the back of the line. Green cards represent the number of dogs to get from the front of the line. Once you get your dogs, start your own dog line in front of you. You can place the dogs however you like. Once you place your dogs, you cannot move them.

Longer chains of dogs of the same breed earn more points, so as you build your own line this is an important scoring factor to keep in mind. There are two ways to win the game. The first player with five dogs of the same breed in his line wins the game. If that doesn't happen, then play ends when there are no more dogs in the playing area. Pull out the scorecard to score your line of dogs and add up your points. The player with the most points wins the game.

There are a few specialty cards in Walk the Dogs. A leash card allows a player to take a dog from the front or the back of the line, or they can choose to take one of the end dogs from one of their opponents. The dog catcher card affects all players. When this card is drawn, it is shown to all players who then lose their longest chain of dogs. The bone card is given to the player with the shortest dog line. This adds 3 points to his score.

Walk the Dogs has many playing pieces. The game does come with a doggie bag to store all of the dogs in it. Just like all of Simply Fun games, Walk the Dogs has a Fun Memories memory keeper booklet so you can write down game memories. It's easy enough for younger kids to play while adding a bit of strategy to be interesting to older children. Walk the Dogs is great game for families to play together.