Thrift Treasure: Top Dogs Card Game

If you’ve been following along, you already know that there’s a new addition to our household. Last month a puppy entered our lives after being dog-less for five years. It took a long time to get over the heartbreak of losing a family member, even if they did live a long, healthy life.

All her life Madison has had an affinity for Husky dogs. Their blue eyes, beautiful coat and great disposition was everything she wanted in a dog. All I saw was the vast amount of shedding hair I’d be cleaning up each week. I did that with our previous dogs (American Eskimos) and wasn’t particularly looking forward to that. So we compromised with a PomChi, which is a Pomeranian mixed with a long-haired Chihuahua. Even if she does shed, the amount will be small since she’ll probably never weigh more than eight pounds or so.

To compensate, we’ve always looked for games that feature a husky dog when possible. Snow Tails was one of our first and it prominently featured the famous sled dogs. There have been a few others that include a husky among other breeds, and that is exactly what we found when we picked up this week’s Thrift Treasure at our local Goodwill – Top Dogs by Playroom Entertainment!

Top Dogs is a simple card game where up to five players construct dog sled teams of three dogs in an attempt to outbid the other mushers and win the trophy. Each player begins the game with identical, but different-colored, decks of 20 cards. These are shuffled and set in front of each player, who then draws seven cards into their hand.

The game is played over ten rounds, which matches up with the ten trophy cards you’ll be vying for. These are also shuffled into their own deck and one of the trophies is drawn and revealed at the beginning of the round. These are worth end-game points varying from seven to sixteen, with the higher-valued versions only occurring once in the deck.

Once the round’s trophy is revealed, all players choose three dogs from their hand and lay them face-down next to their Musher card. Once all players have their team set, all are revealed at the same time. Each card has a numerical value on it and this will be used to determine the overall value of your team.

If you played three different numbers, simply add up the values to get your total score. If you played two of the same number, these are multiplied together before adding the third card. Play three-of-a-kind? Cube the value to get your total score! As it turns out, Top Dog is a great exercise in basic addition and multiplication practice!

The player with the highest total in the round receives the trophy. However, if there are mushers tied, then the next in line wins the card. If all players tie, either for first or for first and second, then no players receive the trophy and it is discarded. At the end of each round you will discard the three dog cards you used PLUS one more card from your hand. Draw four new cards from your deck, bringing your total back up to seven.

After four rounds you will have three cards in your hand and only one in your deck. Draw this card and play the fifth round with only these four cards to choose your three dogs from. After the fifth round, shuffle up your discard pile and begin the sixth round the same as the first. After ten rounds of play, all trophies will either be awarded or discarded and the game ends. Add up the values of the trophies you won and the musher with the the highest overall total wins Top Dogs!

Because we only paid 88 cents at thrift, Top Dogs was a no-brainer for our collection. There are copies on Amazon for as low as $7 and on eBay for a bit more. Certainly worth picking up at your local thrift store if you spot a copy as long as you count the cards (115 total) to make sure they’re all accounted for!

What is your favorite dog-themed game?