Help Canine Companions celebrate 35 years of assistance dogs by throwing
a birthday party! CCI's official birthday is July 4th, and what better time than summer to have a party and celebrate. Here are some tools and ideas for your party. Help raise funds and increase awareness of our exceptional dogs for exceptional people!
Tools:
Download a CCI party invitation, print, fold twice and send to
your friends:
Contact your regional center (1-800-572-BARK) to obtain a
Birthday Kit, with CCI balloons, napkins, party hats, thank you cards to
send after the party, and more!
Create your own fundraising
webpage to announce your party to your friends and accept online
donations in honor of Canine Companions 35th birthday.
Party Ideas:
Have a backyard BBQ at your home, local park or other location
Invite CCI friends, friends new to CCI, and of course dogs!
Decorate in yellow and blue
Food Ideas:
Serve a dog-bone shaped cake
Add yellow or blue food coloring to your food items for a festive CCI presentation
Make a doggie birthday cake using canned dog food
Party Games:
Hot Dog Dunk
For each dog, take a hot dog (preferably natural) and cut into 10 pieces. Toss the pieces in a kiddie pool & see how long it takes each dog to fish them out and eat them. Fastest dog wins!
Water Relay Race Line leashed dogs & their owners up at the starting line. Have the pup owner fill a small cup with water. All teams then race to the "finish line" to dump that water into a bigger cup. Once they've emptied their smaller cup, the teams race back to the starting line to re-fill their cups. Repeat. Do this until the big cup is filled! First team to fill their big cup wins!
Pup Painting Let your dog guests create their very own masterpieces to take home! You can use our Pup-Casso Paint Kits <http://www.doglovergiftbaskets.com/product/DB-PupCasso> or try this DIY one:
Mix together corn starch, flour, water & food coloring to desired consistency and color. Put the paint on the dog's paws, put the dogs on large sheets of paper (We recommend placing plastic under that paper to preserve whatever surface they're painting on.) and let the pups go at it!
Fetch! Pass out a couple frisbees and have your guests throw the frisbees for your 4-legged guests to catch & bring back! We recommend having more than 1 frisbee going at a time, to avoid impatience with all the doggie guests.
Hide & Seek with Toys & Treats Hide toys or treats around your party area & have your guests track them down ~ this just might keep them busy for hours!
Hide & Seek with People & Pups Put the dogs in a "Down/Stay" position. Now have the human guests hide! Dogs are sure to have fun looking for their human companions... maybe with a little help from some whispered clues as they search.
Follow the Leader
Set up an obstacle course and have the dogs take turns following you (or a human guest) through the course.
Tic-Tac-Toe
Draw the board on the ground with boxes that are approximately 4' x 4'. Have 2 teams, the "Sits" vs. the "Downs". Each team takes a turn and has the handler and dog go to whatever box they choose. Three dogs in a row sitting or lying in the same position wins the game. To make it a bit more challenging, if your dog is a "sit" and it gets bored and lies down in it's box it may win the game for the other team! To make it even harder, once the owner places their dog in a sit or down, they have to leave the game board and go back to the sidelines, and hope their dog stays in position. If a dog stands up it has to go back to it's team and wait for the next turn before it can go back onto the board, so you may end up with 2 "sits" but 4 "downs" on the board at the same time because a dog got up or a dog was supposed to be sitting and laid down instead..
Treat Race
Need dog treats or kibble and large tablespoons or serving spoons. Line the dogs and their owners up at the start line, give each owner a spoon and a treat or kibble. The owner has to balance it on the spoon and race from the start line to the finish line. If they drop it they have to go back to the start line for another spoonful. To make it more challenging make the owner hold the spoon in the same hand that they're holding the dog's leash. That way if the dog pulls on the leash the owner is more likely to drop the food.
Musical Hoops
If you have 10 dogs you'll need 9 hoops. It's played the same as musical chairs but when the music stops the owners have to get their dogs to race and sit in the next hoop in front of them. It's fun if you get a CD of dog songs like: How much is that doggie in the window, Who let the dogs out…etc.
Red Light, Green Light, 1 2 3...
This is played the same as the kid's game except when the announcer turns around the dogs need to be sitting (or choose to have them in a down). If they aren't sitting they have to go back to the start line and begin again.
