Dogs have spots.

Dice have spots.

2
Place your dice on the right spots.

Complete your dogs to score them!

3
 Dice you can’t place get buried in your yard.

Bury too many spots and you bust.

4
Score 6 dogs and you win!

5
 Setup
1. Take these 6 trick tiles out of the box:

Put them faceup in the middle of the table, like above. Don’t
worry about the other tiles yet—they’re for adding variety in
future games.
2. Take out the deck of dog cards, shuffle it, and deal 2 dog
cards to every player, gray side up. This is your dog pack!
Put all the remaining dog cards in the middle of the table,
gray side up.
3. Put all the dice and treats in piles where everyone can
reach them. It can be messy. You’re dogs.

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4. Each player takes 1 yard, 1 treat, and 1 die. Everyone rolls
their die and buries it in their yard. Here’s what each player
will have in front of them:

5. Whoever has the highest buried die goes first. If there’s a

tie, those players reroll until they’re not tied anymore. Now
you’re ready to play!
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 How to Play Spots
In Spots, players take turns in clockwise order. On your turn,
you can choose to either (1) do a trick or (2) score your dogs.
On most turns, you’ll be doing a trick:

Do a Trick

Choose any of the faceup trick tiles (at the beginning of the
game, they all start faceup).

Example: In this situation below, you have two faceup actions to choose from,
WALK or RUN.

After you choose a faceup tile, flip it facedown and follow all
steps on it in the order they are listed.

8
rolling and placing dice

Most tricks involve rolling dice and then placing them on your
dogs. Whenever you need to roll dice, take them from the
common pile, unless the trick tile says otherwise.
After you roll, you may place those dice on matching spaces
on any of your dogs, i.e. a die showing 4 spots can go on any
space that also shows 4 spots. Any rolled dice that you can’t
(or don’t want to) place, must be buried in your yard instead.

Example: You choose the Run trick tile (shown at the left), and begin by
performing the first step, which tells you to roll 3 dice. You take 3 dice from
the common pile, roll them, and get a 3, 4, and 6. You can place the 3 and 4
dice on your dogs, but have to bury the 6 in your yard, since there aren’t any
6 spaces on your dog.

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 Example, cont: You move on to the second step of the Run trick tile, which
is optional because it says you may do it. You decide to roll a die. You get a
2 and place it on a dog. Since the second step is repeatable, you have the
option to do it again and roll another die, but you decide to stop instead.

spending treats

Treats are great, because they let you reroll your dice!
Immediately after rolling—but before placing or burying
them—you can always choose to reroll all of the dice you just
rolled by spending 1 treat. Here’s how it works:
• You must reroll ALL the dice in the roll, not just the dice
you don’t like.
• There’s no limit to the number of treats you can spend in a
turn. As long as you have enough treats to spend, you can
keep rerolling until you get a result you like.
• You can only spend treats to reroll your most recent roll.

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Example: Consider the situation on page 9, where you rolled a 3, 4, and 6.
You can place the 3 and 4, but you have nowhere to place the 6, so you
would have to bury it instead. You decide to spend a treat and redo the roll.
As a result you reroll ALL of the dice, including the 3 and 4 you could have
otherwise placed.

busting

If you can’t (or don’t want to) place a die on a dog, you must
bury it in your yard instead. And if the total number of spots
on your buried dice is more than 7, you bust!
When you bust, this happens:
• Your turn ends immediately, even if you haven’t finished
performing all the steps on the trick tile.
• Discard all dice placed on your dogs.
• Discard all of your buried dice.
Of course, you can use treats to try to prevent this—rerolling
happens before burying dice—but if you can’t or don’t want to
spend treats to prevent a bust, then you’re out of luck.

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 • Steps are mandatory unless they say you “may” do it.
• If you can’t perform a step for some reason, e.g. you
choose Roll Over but have no buried dice, then simply
skip it.
• If you can’t perform the first step, that does not prevent you
from still performing the second step.
• Some steps on tiles say you can repeat them (such as the
second step of Run pictured earlier). That means you can
do that step of the trick as many times as you want (or until
you bust)!
• Some trick tiles become stronger based on how many
are on your dog cards.
• After you roll dice, place or bury all of those dice before
moving on to any other roll. See examples below for two
in-game situations that this applies to.

EXAMPLE 1: You choose Walk and roll 2 dice. After spending any treats, you
must place or bury those initial 2 dice before moving on to the second step
and deciding if you want to roll 1 more die.

EXAMPLE 2: You choose Bolt, and set aside 3 dice. Since the tile instructs
you to roll the dice 1 at a time, you must place or bury each die before moving
on to the next one.

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resetting the trick tiles

Eventually, only one trick tile will be faceup. If you start your
turn and only have 1 trick to choose from:

1. Place 1 treat from the supply on the only faceup trick tile
(the treat will go to the next player who chooses this trick).
2. Flip all of the trick tiles faceup. You can now choose from
any of them!

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 Score Your Dogs

Scoring your dogs is how you win the game! And since scored
dogs are never at risk when you bust, it helps you steadily
make progress.
There are two ways to score your dogs:

slow and steady

On your turn—instead of doing a trick—you can score your

dogs! When you do:

1. Discard ALL dice on your completed dog cards (cards that

have all their spaces filled with dice) and flip them over to
show that they’ve been scored.
2. For each dog card you scored this turn, draw the top card
of the dog deck and add it your pack, gray side up.

• You must have at least one completed dog card to score.

You can’t just score to avoid doing a trick.
• When you score, you must score ALL completed dogs
cards, not just certain ones.

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fast and risky

If you ever complete ALL of your faceup dog cards while

doing a trick, score them instantly!
This is a reward for being brave…or just lucky.
When you score this way, do it the exact same as “slow and
steady” above (discard the dice, flip the dogs, draw new
dogs). The only difference is, unlike slow scoring, you don’t
have to spend a whole turn doing it!
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 • To do Fast and Risky scoring, you must first place or bury all
the dice from your most recent roll. If that roll causes you to
bust, you will not get to score!
• After Fast and Risky scoring, be sure to finish your current
trick. If you still have a second step of a trick tile to perform,
or are in the middle of a repeatable step (like the second
step of Run), draw your new dogs and keep going!

six dog card limit

You can never have more than 6 dog cards, counting both
scored and unscored cards. If you ever should draw above
that amount, stop drawing once you’ve reached that limit of 6.
Example: if you have 5 dog cards and score 2 of them, you will only draw 1
new dog card, since drawing the second one would put you above 6.

Winning the Game

The first player to have 6 scored dog cards wins immediately!

16
Other Things to Know
running out of dice or treats

If a player needs to roll dice but not enough are available,

they simply roll what dice they can, even if that number is
less than what the trick tile requires. In the extremely rare
case that zero dice are available at the start of a player’s turn,
then all players immediately bust and lose all of their dice!
Afterwards, the player whose turn it is continues as normal.
If a player ever tries to take a treat and not enough are
available, then they simply take as many treats as they can,
even if they are supposed to take more.

adding variety to future plays

After you’ve played with the first set of trick tiles, go ahead
and mix things up by using some of the other tiles provided.
• Every game uses exactly 6 trick tiles.
• Always include Howl and Roll Over.
• Include 1 additional tile from each of the 4 color categories
(each color also has a different rosette style). These can
be selected randomly, or you can use some recommended
sets on the next page.

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 recommended sets

• Adoption Event: Walk, Run, Fetch, Beg

• Dog Park: Dig, Chase, Guard, Chew
• Agility Course: Trot, Bolt, Fetch, Gobble
• Hunting Grounds: Retrieve, Sprint, Hunt, Stay
• Kennel Club: Track, Dogpile, Search, Beg
• Puppy Pen: Retrieve, Bolt, Scavenge, Play Dead

off leash hours variant

This is a variant for people who don’t mind a slightly more

chaotic game. Use ALL the trick tiles! Trick tiles of the same
color should be stacked on top of each other in a random
order. When you use a tile, flip the top trick tile of the stack.
When it comes time to reset the tiles, any facedown tiles are
not only flipped faceup but also moved to the bottom of the
stack. Note that this does not apply to Howl and Roll Over,
which are always in play.

more information

For FAQ, solo mode, and more, visit: www.sp

potstheg
game.com
Need help with anything? Email us at [email protected]
games

18
 Credits
lead game design
Jon Perry

development and design

Alex Hague & Justin Vickers

art
John Bond

game design consultant

Montana Graboyes

art and design consultant

Kristen Leach

namer of dogs
Dan Abromowitz

publisher
CMYK

manufacturer
Strom Mfg

thank you
Cardstock ‘21, Alisa Daar, Jonathan Daar, Josh Freeman,
Alex Hart, Brian Henk, Game Makers Guild, Eric Garneau,
Sara Glenn, Chris Grote, Hasting Johnson, Mary Johnson,
Wesley Johnson, Doug Maccaferri, Mark McGee, Steven Ness,
Luca Pimentel, Fiona Pongratz, Daniel Pool, Regina Salazar,
Spencer Saunders, Unpub, Joey Vigour, James Woodbury.
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 Quick Reference
On your turn, choose one of these two actions:

do a trick score your dogs

• Select a faceup trick tile, • Discard all dice on

flip it, and perform all completed dogs and turn
steps on it in order. those dogs facedown.
• If a step says “may” you or • Draw 1 new dog for each
don’t have to do it. dog scored, but stop once
you have 6 total scored
• Some steps say you may
and unscored dog cards.
repeat it until you decide
to stop (or bust).

when rolling dice

• Take them from the common pile, unless the tile says otherwise.
• If you spend a treat, you have to reroll ALL the dice you just
rolled. You can’t just choose the ones you don’t want.
• After you finish rolling (and spending treats), place or bury all
dice before continuing to any other rolls.

other really important rules

• When there’s only 1 faceup trick tile left, put 1 treat on the last
faceup tile and then flip all trick tiles faceup.
• If all the spaces on all of your dogs are filled, score them all
immediately without spending a turn!
• You bust if your buried dice add up to more than 7. When this
happens, end your turn and discard all buried dice and dice
on your dogs.