Playing This Simple Game with Your Dog for 5 Minutes Will Totally Change Your Relationship

There are endless ways you can bond with your dog, and it starts the moment you adopt them — especially if you're bringing a puppy into your family. Sure, at first, you're strangers (even if your dog is the cutest stranger you've ever met) but the love between you will quickly grow through all of the cuddles, walks, and daily moments you share together.

But if you're really hoping to have a "soul dog"- level relationship with your new puppy, there's a trick you can try that the experts swear will bring you closer together in no time, and it's something that you can do on your own, or, if you have kids, the whole family can do together as they get to know their new puppy.

Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods are a husband and wife pair who started Puppy Kindergarten at Duke University, a 12-week program that trains puppies to determine who among them would make good service dogs. And according to what they told Time recently, the spike in oxytocin that happens when you and your dog spend quality time together is so significant that they created a game around it that will help strengthen your relationship, especially in those early puppy days.

How to Play

First, you'll want to put a treat in a small, clear container (with no lid) and give it to the puppy in question. After they eat it, put another treat in the container, this time with the lid on top, but not secure. The puppy will knock the lid off of the container and eat the treat.

For the next round, put a treat in the container and close the lid so that it's secure and the puppy can't get in. They may try to open it and struggle for a minute, but eventually, they'll likely look at you for help. This means making eye contact — one of the things that brings those oxytocin levels up.

Then, you get to swoop in and be the hero, rescuing their treat from its prison and saving the day.

They've discovered that pet parents who play this game with their puppies on a regular basis between the ages of eight and 20 weeks — for about five minutes at a time, once every two weeks — will end up making twice as much eye contact with their dogs as they would have otherwise, doubling the bond they have with their pups.

It's definitely worth a shot, and it will certainly make your puppy happy to have extra treats and playtime with their new favorite human. Have fun!