Rules for O, dog! — a race game for teams of two, based on the classic Brändi Dog.
Two players sitting diagonally opposite form a team. Move all your marbles from the kennel, around the loop, and into your home stretch. The first team with all eight marbles home wins. Once all your own marbles are home you keep drawing cards and play them onto your partner's marbles until the team wins together.
A single player cannot win — this is a partnership game. Talking about your cards or advising partners is forbidden during the game.
Two packs of 55 cards are shuffled together (104 standard cards plus 6 Jokers).
You must play every card by moving its value on the board. If a card has no legal move at all, it is automatically discarded and your turn passes — no card can block the game.
Advising partners or revealing your cards is forbidden.
Partners sit diagonally opposite. All four marbles begin in the kennel. One player is chosen as the dealer for the whole game and deals counter-clockwise. Round card counts follow the cycle 6 → 5 → 4 → 3 → 2, then repeat.
At the start of every round each player passes one card face-down to their partner. All four passes resolve simultaneously. The player to the dealer's right opens each round by playing one card face-up in the middle and moving that value. The round ends once everyone has played all cards. If a player cannot move with any card in hand, they are out for the round and their cards are discarded.
Only Ace, King or Joker takes a marble from the kennel onto your start cell. A marble that has just left the kennel blocks its own start cell — it cannot be passed, cannot be captured, and cannot be swapped with a Jack. The blockade lasts until that marble itself moves — it stays active across rounds and is not reset by new deals.
The blockade only applies to other players: you may always bring another marble out of your kennel, even while your own blocker sits on the start cell. The new marble takes the start cell and your marble standing there is sent back to your kennel.
If you land on a cell already occupied by another marble (your own included), that marble is sent back to its owner's kennel. The only exception is a fresh start-cell blocker — it is protected.
Any marble a whole or split 7 passes over or lands on is sent home — your own marbles included. Plan splits carefully.
A 7 must always be played out in full. The game checks in advance whether all seven single steps can be distributed across your (and your partner's) marbles; if that is impossible, the 7 is not offered as a move at all and is discarded like any other unplayable card. While a split is in progress you can cancel it and take the card back if no continuation is left.
You may overtake other marbles freely. A fresh start-cell blocker is the only marble that cannot be overtaken; every card except a 7 (see rule 5) stops at it.
A Jack must swap one of your marbles with any other marble on the loop (opponent's or partner's), even if the swap is disadvantageous. Tap your own marble first, then tap the marble you want to swap it with. You can never swap two marbles belonging to the same player.
Only the two positions are exchanged. Each marble keeps its own lap counter (the number badge), so home eligibility travels with the marble, not with the square.
Marbles that may not be swapped:
If only your own marbles are on the track and no other card in your hand is playable, the Jack may be played at the end with no effect.
Every card must be played, and its full value carried out. This can force disadvantageous moves. Example: if you need a 5 to enter home but your next card is a 6, that marble must take another lap.
Every marble carries a small number badge: how many times it has passed its own start cell. A marble may only turn into its home stretch once that counter is at least 1. Moving backwards over your own start cell with a 4 also counts as a crossing and increases the counter.
Home is always entered forwards over the start. Entry fills from the inside outwards: the marble walks in as deep as the card allows and lands on the deepest free slot it can reach.
Marbles already inside the home stretch stay playable — they can still step deeper with an exact count. They can never move backwards, and they can never jump over another marble of the same colour, so a marble parked in front can block a later one.
The 7 is especially useful for home entry because it can be broken up into individual steps.
Typical sequence:
Once one player has all their marbles home, they help their partner. A 7 can be split so its remaining points, after bringing the last own marble home, continue on a partner's marble. Cards keep being dealt to a player without marbles — the team plays the endgame together.
To finish, not every card needs to be used, but the last card played must be fully carried out. A last marble may therefore need extra laps before its exact count fits.
Everyone plays alone with 4 marbles. In this version all four marbles start in the kennel — you need an Ace, King or Joker to get going.
Card exchange: at the start of every round each player passes one card face-down to their right neighbour.
7: a 7 may be split across any of your marbles and captures every marble it passes over — with one exception: a start-cell blocker cannot be passed or captured, not even with a 7.
2: may be played normally, or used to draw one card from an opponent's hand into yours; the 2 is then discarded with no board effect and the turn passes. If every opponent is already out of cards, the card is drawn from the draw pile instead, so a lone 2 never becomes a dead card.
The first player to bring all four marbles home wins.
Rules adapted from the official Brändi Dog manual (braendi-dog.de).