circle has a dog. It’s a real problem. You need to pet one; you all do. Luckily, the Hair of the Dog pub will let you in, as long as you’re buying drinks. Your group heads there with a singular mission: pet all the dogs.
In Hair of the Dog, you are competing to pet the most dogs. Between 2 and 8 players will be running around a dog-friendly pub, trying to pet different dogs. Dogs have some conditions that must be meet before petting, and you’ll have to deduce what those are by either carefully watching your friends or, worse, asking the dog owner through awkward conversation.
Players take turns navigating the bar and performing actions, such as trying to pet a dog, trading for the right dog toy, or buying a beverage. As they do so, they’ll slowly drink their beverage (or quickly drink it if they’d like extra actions). Finally, they’ll move a staff member of the bar. If any staff catch a player without a drink in their hand, that player ignominiously earns a shame token. Everyone can make this drink-in-hand mandate worse by calling for toasts; forcing people into the social contract of drinking more.
To succeed at dog petting, players have to balance progress with temperance, keep a careful eye on which dogs are getting pet when, and trick others into being caught with neither a dog nor drink.