The year was 1995—my first year as a teacher. I was teaching at Hyde Elementary School in Washington, D.C. During recess duty, I was monitoring a game of Capture the Flag when I noticed a fifth grader making a beeline toward me. He was coming in hot, stomping with every step, and wearing a scowl that suggested something had gone terribly wrong.
“Alex is puppy guarding,” he declared.
“Alex is what?” I asked.
“I was standing in the safety zone, and Alex wouldn’t let me out. There’s NO PUPPY GUARDING!”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
According to Urban Dictionary, puppy guarding is when a player guards a “safe” or “base” area during a game of tag, essentially forcing the player in the safe zone to risk being tagged the moment they step out.
Puppy Guarding Defined by the Experts
I had never heard the term before. In four years of college studying physical education, my professors covered just about everything PE-related—but somehow, puppy guarding never made the curriculum.
Throughout the rest of my rookie year at Hyde, I heard the term again and again. Anytime I introduced a new tag game, it seemed inevitable that a hand would shoot up with the same question:
“Is there puppy guarding?”
For the entire five years I spent at Hyde, I assumed puppy guarding was unique to that school. I figured some clever, puppy-loving student had coined the phrase and somehow introduced it to the rest of the school.
Then came the year 2000.
I started my second teaching job about five miles across town at a small independent elementary school. On my very first day, during my very first class, I was explaining the closing activity when a hand shot into the air like a rocket.
“Is there puppy guarding?”
Wait. What? WHAT?!
Puppy guarding must be native to Washington, D.C., I thought—much like Go-Go music.
Fast-forward to 2007.
My next stop was Atlanta, Georgia—more than 600 miles south of Washington, D.C. I introduced a game that involved a base, and sure enough, almost immediately, I heard it:
“Is there puppy guarding?”
Oh my! There it was again.
WHOOOAAA!
At that point, I had to admit that puppy guarding was clearly bigger than Hyde Elementary School. Apparently, the term was being used by kids up and down the East Coast of the United States.
But that left me with even more questions.
Is puppy guarding a national phenomenon? Is it used around the world? Where did the expression originate? When was it first used? And do other PE teachers remember using the term when they were kids?
Somewhere along the way during my twenty years of teaching, puppy guarding officially became part of my own PE vocabulary. These days, when I introduce a game with a safe zone or base, I often explain right up front whether puppy guarding is allowed—mostly in an attempt to beat my students to the punch.
So, the next time you play a tag game, make sure you know the number-one rule, with perhaps the most mysteriously adorable name in PE:
Puppy guarding.
And while we’re at it…
Why puppies?
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Great article. In 36 years of teaching I didn’t know this really had a definition!
Thanks Sandy. I’ve always been intrigued by it? What post of the world do you teach? Congratulations on 36 years.
Puppy guarding is used out here on the west coast too! If they ask and the answer is no I say, “I don’t see any puppies in here.” 🙂
Agreed—I can not understand where that term comes from! It drives me crazy! haha When I ask the kids who says it or where they use it they never know. It is that crazy term they all know and use but can not pinpoint….because we as PE teachers do not use it. Interesting how that happens!
Winnipeg Manitoba Canada and my n-6 students talk about puppy guarding. I usually tell them if they don’t want to be puppy guarded then don’t go in a hoop or safe zone. It usually ends the puppy guarding conversation.
Great idea. Thanks for sharing. Puppy Guarding is all over the world. I’ve heard from Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and now Canada.
I teach in Missouri and “puppy guarding” is a coined phrase here as well. Your article is spot on for what I have experienced as well. So, I don’t know where it started or how or when or why…. but puppy guarding is real and the struggles are real.
Haha! I love this. I will post on this soon, but I play Capture the Flag…With Zombies! I basically walk around slowly and I am eligible to tag anyone at any time. Try it! Let me know if it helps!
Have a great day,
Jack
Oh yeah! I think the Zombie idea is BRILLIANT. Will definitley give it a try. Thanks for the follow!
Let me know how it goes! Thanks and good luck
I’m from Perth, Australia and the kids at my school call it ‘doggy guarding.’ Same meaning though. Your article resonated with me as I’d never heard the phrase before either. Now I use it all the time too!
Never used or heard this phrase growing up on Long Island. Heard it at my second school in my 8th year of teaching in Georgia. It drives me crazy…. I always ask where are the puppies and why are we guarding them… the students laugh. We called it baby sitting.
I Have been teaching PE in southeastern PA for 31 years and have never heard the phrase “puppy guarding” until now. My students use the phrase “babysitting”.
That’s we we called it in upstate NY when I was a kid. Makes so much more sense.
supposedly the term comes from the tendency for untrained puppies to guard resources like food and toys to keep them away from other puppies (they guard food or their toys) so that other puppies or animals don’t find them and use them. when I was a kid (I’m a gen X-er) we just called it “guarding.”