Go-Pee is the canine version of the Japanese game of Go.

I have been visiting my parents for the last couple of weeks. One of my favorite things to do when visiting them is to walk their dog, Cody. Cody is a golden retriever the size of a great dane and has the personality of a precocious and charming four-year-old. Technically speaking, Cody, a.k.a. by the AKA "Dogstar Wild Buffalo Bill Dakota" (or something like that, none of us can remember the whole thing, and I'm sure I've left out a couple words), is a "jumbo" golden retriever although he's not a speck overweight. This is one big dog. All of which is to say that Cody is also possessed of the Go-Pee player's greatest asset: a bladder with the tensile strength and inflationary capacity of a rubber punch balloon.

1. Your neighborhood park can be mapped as go board with fat squares. While significantly larger than the standard go board, Go-pee actually has fewer squares on which to score.

2. Each point of play on the grid has a scoring marker which must be successfully tagged in order to pheromonally flip it and score the point.

Cody's park plays to an 8-line grid:

  a b c d e f g h 
8 . . . . . . . .
7 . . . . . . . . 
6 . . . . . . . . 
5 . . . . . . . . 
4 . . . . . . . .
3 . . . . . . . . 
2 . . . . . . . .
1 . . . . . . . . 

Examples:

8a: The stop sign at the corner of Givens and Dickens 8b: A spot near the picnic shelter

7a: a juniper bush

6a: a popular patch of grass

6b: the right front leg of a park bench

5a: another popular patch of grass 4a: a bridge over a culvert

Etc.

Cody's ability to play depends on how wide-ranging and permissive his walk is. Tonight was a very good night, as it was relatively cool and we were able to cover a substantial number of points on the grid.

All other rules to Go apply.

While Go-Pee seems like it would be exponentially harder than Go due to the number of players involved, score is basically kept in the individual dog's head as "Me" versus "Other Dogs" even though "Other Dogs" may be distinguished at some resolution, e.g., "That Corgi That Smells Like Pepperoni" and "That Akita That Wants to Eat My Still-Beating Heart" etc.