Every other page on this site assesses equipment against weather, ground and players. This one adds a fourth party who has not agreed to any of the rules and who classifies objects by whether they can be carried.
From a dog's point of view a good chunk of this catalogue is a box of toys. It is worth knowing which parts before rather than after.
How dogs read equipment
Three categories of problem
1. Things that look like sticks
The biggest category and the most expensive. Kubb publishes six batons at 30 cm long and 4.4 cm in diameter, plus ten kubbs at 15 cm and a 30 cm king — that is seventeen stick-shaped hardwood objects lying on a lawn. Molkky is twelve birch pins, smaller and even more carryable.
A chewed baton is not cosmetic damage: kubb is wood striking wood, and a baton with a chewed end no longer flies or lands the same way.
2. Things that are already soft toys
Cornhole bags are 6 by 6 inches and 16 ounces of fabric — a beanbag, in every sense that matters to a dog. The published fill on the sets we cover is resin or recycled plastic pellet, which means a chewed bag distributes hundreds of small pellets across the grass.
3. Things that fall over
A 19-row stacking tower reaching five feet is not stable enough to survive being leaned on. The published footprint of about 10 by 10 feet is a fall radius, and a dog running through that radius is exactly what it is a radius for.
| Game | What the dog sees | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Bocce | A ball too big and hard to be interesting | Safe both ways |
| Croquet | 3 in, 10 oz balls and long mallets | Broadly safe; watch the wickets |
| Giant 4 in a row | A frame and 3.5 in coins | Safe — coins are too big to swallow |
| Giant yard dice | 3.5 in pine cubes | Chewable, but too big to swallow |
| Ladder toss | Bolas made of two golf balls | Golf balls are a known choking risk |
| Cornhole | A 16 oz fabric beanbag | Bags will be taken; fill scatters |
| Kubb | Seventeen hardwood sticks | Worst on the list for equipment |
| Molkky | Twelve small birch pins | Very carryable |
| Disc golf | A frisbee | Rigid plastic — not a dog toy |
| Kan Jam | A frisbee and two plastic goals | Same disc problem |
| Spikeball | A small inflated ball | Punctured in one bite |
| Badminton | A shuttlecock | Feathers and cork; small enough to swallow |
| Giant stacking tower | A tall thing to lean on | Falls; blocks get chewed |
| Horseshoes | Steel | Dangerous to the dog, not the reverse |
What to buy
The games that are genuinely dog-proof
Bocce is the answer, for the same material reason it wins on weather. A ball published at 90 to 107 mm of solid resin is too large for most dogs to pick up and far too hard to be worth chewing, and there are only nine pieces to keep track of. The one component to watch is the pallino — at 45 to 60 mm it is small enough to carry, and it is the piece without which the game does not work. Keep a spare: replacing lost yard game parts.
Giant 4 in a Row is the other clean answer. A 31 by 23 inch board on legs with 42 coins at 3.5 inches — nothing swallowable, nothing stick-shaped, and it wants hard standing rather than lawn, which usually means it is not where the dog is.
Croquet is broadly fine: balls are published at 3 inches and 10 ounces, and mallets are too long to be toys. The exception is the wickets, which are wire hoops at dog height in the middle of a lawn.
If you already own the wrong thing
Habits rather than purchases
- Bags never touch the ground between rounds. Cornhole bags on the board or in the case, not on the grass. This one habit prevents most of the damage in this whole category.
- Count the small parts before the dog comes back out. Bolas, pallinos, discs and shuttlecocks are all pocket-sized and all attractive.
- Do not leave a tower standing unattended. The published 10 by 10 foot figure is a fall radius, and an unsupervised dog is the most likely thing to enter it.
- Buy a dog disc if you are playing disc golf. Soft and flexible, and it gives the dog something to do while you putt — which is genuinely the best solution on this page.
The lawn takes a beating from both directions at once, incidentally: dogs and fixed-position games wear the same grass. See yard games and your lawn.
What we would buy
The gear behind this guide
The sets whose published specifications this page is built on. Ranked on spec completeness and footprint clarity, not on testing we have not done.
Best overall
St. Pierre Sports Professional Bocce Set, 107 mm
St. Pierre
107 mm thermo-set composition resin balls built to international bocce specifications and named an official ball of the United States Bocce Federation.
Skip this if
Skip this if the set is mainly for kids or a beach bag. Full-size 107 mm balls are heavy enough that a small player cannot roll one accurately.
Best overall
GoSports 4 ft x 2 ft Solid Wood Premium Cornhole Set
GoSports
Regulation 4 x 2 ft boards on solid pine frames with a 1/2 in cabinet-grade plywood top, eight 16 oz all-weather bags and a case — the complete tournament-legal setup in one box.
Skip this if
Skip this if your yard is under 30 ft long. A regulation court is 27 ft board-front to board-front plus throwing room behind each board, and there is no shortening it without changing the game.
Best overall
Yard Games Giant Tumbling Timbers
Yard Games
56 sustainably sourced New Zealand pine blocks at 1.5 x 2.5 x 7.5 in, starting at 2.5 ft over 19 rows and reaching 5 ft, in a nylon case.
Skip this if
Skip this if the only flat ground you have is a lawn. A 19-row tower needs a hard, level base — grass tips it before anybody pulls a block.
Best first set of discs
Innova Disc Golf Starter Set (3 Disc)
Innova
The three discs a course actually asks for — a DX Leopard driver, a DX Shark mid-range and a DX Aviar putter — all PDGA approved, in the grippy beginner plastic Innova names for the purpose.
Skip this if
Skip this if you were expecting somewhere to throw at. A disc set is not a course: Innova publishes no basket with it, and a backyard game needs a target you buy or improvise separately.
FAQ
Questions people actually ask
Which yard games are safe around dogs?
Will a dog destroy cornhole bags?
Can a dog have a disc golf disc?
What is the biggest risk to the game rather than the dog?
Why you can check our work
We have not played these. Every figure above is copied from a manufacturer's published listing or a governing body's published rules, and named so you can verify it. Where a maker publishes nothing, the field is blank rather than filled in. How we pick explains the whole method, including what would change a recommendation.
Read next
Related pages
Picks
Yard game guides
Rules, regulation dimensions, materials and storage — sourced from governing bodies and makers.
Guide
Replacing lost yard game parts
Which single missing components kill a whole set, and what to keep a spare of.
Guide
Yard games and your lawn
Which games wear turf, where the damage always appears, and how to keep a lawn playable.
Guide
How to look after cornhole bags
Cleaning, drying and storing resin-filled bags, and the signs a set is finished.
Picks
Backyard disc golf
Three named PDGA-approved discs, what each one does, and the target you still have to solve.
Guide
Yard game safety and age floors
What each maker actually publishes about age, and how to judge the games that publish nothing.
Sources
- American Cornhole League — rules and regulations
- United States Bocce Federation — open rules
- Kubb World Championship — rules (English)
- Innova — disc golf starter set
Every figure on this page is copied from one of these sources. If you find one that is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it.