I’ve been playing this game for many years. Residents can relate to cards as a lifeskill which makes it more enjoyable. 
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I’ve been playing this game for many years. Residents can relate to cards as a lifeskill which makes it more enjoyable. 

It takes two decks of cards. One deck for the dealer, the other cards for the players.

The idea of the game is for the players to be the first to have their cards called .

Shuffle both decks of cards.

Deal 4  or 6 cards to each person from the player's deck of cards facing UP.

The dealer then calls out the cards from the dealer's deck one by one.

When a player has a card that is called, they turn the card face down.

When a player has all their cards faced down, they are the winner! 

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Holly 3rd Dec 2024 Activity Director
This card game is wildly popular with my residents! They're always asking when they can play Lucky Dog again. I have a mentally sharp resident who likes to be the caller. She can lead the game even when I'm off work. I encourage her and another resident who is "with it" to get the cards out and have a game if they're bored. I give out prizes to winners.
Tammy Reed 30th Oct 2024
we also play this game for our residents, but we call it whoopie instead. they have a blast playing it. And the winner either gets to pick out prizes or some days we play for quarters, and we play 6 games and then we play 2 more games but if they win, they get 50 cents.
Susan Delmaire 7th Feb 2023
We call this game Pokeno!
Susan 4th Jan 2022 Activity Director
Hi Penny
Thanks for letting us know about this
Susan 30th Dec 2021 Activity Director
Hi Gj
I like your ideas thanks for sharing them
Penny 4th Jan 2022
I love that you use large print cards! I found that some of my folks get confused with the turned over cards. I have them throw the cards in a basket in the center of the table to get them out of sight. We have to be flexible right?!
G.J. Hoekstra-Prinsen 29th Dec 2021
This is an excellent activity for people with dementia. I use 2 identical jumbo sized decks of cards, which makes them easier to identify. Also, I gather the called cards instead of turning them over, to make it less confusing for certain people. Thanks from the Netherlands!
Dawn 26th Mar 2021 Activities Coordinator
Our Lucky Dog that we play is 6 index like cards numbered 1-6, stacked in a pile . They can put them in any order they want. Then they roll the dice and it has to land on the number of their top card. Once it rolls on the number of their top card, they turn that card over and they get to roll again. Its a lot of fun when we have about 10 of them doing it. They really like it.
Susan 30th Mar 2021 Activity Director
Hi Dawn
The way you play the game sounds like a lot of fun
Thank you for sharing
Sally 5th Feb 2021 Activities Coordinator
We like this game and call it Hoi
Penny 16th Jul 2019
it Is challenging to find a game that our population can feel successful at and can even help another person. I work at a LATE STAGE Alzheimers AL. I’m always looking for games that they can relate to and not feel childish.
Susan 17th Jul 2019 Activity Director
Here are more games for those with late stage dementia suggested that and golden Carers hope they are useful to you
https://www.goldencarers.com/matching-colours/3774/
Susan 10th Jul 2019 Activity Director
I like that name
Thank you
Shannon 9th Jul 2019 Activity Director
We call this "Hillbilly Poker" ....haha.
Talita 15th Jul 2019
love it, ha!
Sherrye 15th Jun 2019
We play this but with cards numbered one - six. Players push up two cards and then roll a large dice. If they roll one of the numbers pushed up its turned face down and push up another and repeat. If they do not roll one of the two- pass the dice to the next player. First to turn over all six is the Lucky dog Winner! They win a prize! I get really into the commentator roll! LOL
Talita 24th Jun 2019
This sounds like a fun alternate version to the game Sherrye, thanks for sharing!
Frances 21st Sep 2019 Activity Director
Hmm I will try this one
Kay 15th Jun 2019 Activity Director
We have been playing this game for a long time, but we play with pennies. Each resident has 10 pennies and I collect 1 penny from each player for each hand,The winner gets all the pennies in the jar for that round. so we play 10 hands. A lot of fun. the residents enjoy getting pennies when they win
Churchill 14th Jun 2019 Lifestyle
Yes we call this hoy one pack per four people
Julie 14th Jun 2019 Activities Coordinator
Sounds goo. I'm going to give it a go. Thanks
Michele 15th Mar 2019 Recreation Coordinator
we do this same game, but deal out as much of the deck (or two decks depending on number of players) so everyone has the same #. I use a very large deck as the dealer deck so all residents can easily see the card called (some have hearing issues).

we call this game Card Bingo - when the first, second, and third have put all their cards in the centre, they yell BINGO, and each win a small treat.
Cathie 21st Feb 2019 Activity Direction
We enjoy this game too, we call it Turn Over. It really is a great game and I love all the names that it is called, another place calls it Mary's game. Thank you all, this is making my job so much more fun. God Bless!!!
Solange 21st Feb 2019 Diversional Therapist
Thank you Cathie for your kind words.
Alison 5th Feb 2019 Diversional Therapist
We have two ladies from our memory support unit who enjoy playing bingo but were finding it difficult with our bingo buttons.
So we improvised and photo copied bingo cards many times and provided them with bright coloured pens and changed cards after each game. This brought back memories for our ladies who can now fully participate in the game without the confusion of moving the buttons.
Love this site so many great "IDEAS".
Charmain and Alison. Lifestyle Team.
Talita 8th Feb 2019
Thanks so much for your feedback Alison!
Susan 5th Feb 2019 Freelance Activity Co-ordinator
This is called Hoy, or we just call it Card Bingo. A great game for those who cannot manage a 'proper' game of bingo.
Maureen 3rd Feb 2019 activities officier
We use this as Bingo as it is very easy to set up and when finished on game we pass two cards to the right so that we are interacting with all those at the table sometimes we go to the left just to create even more interaction and sometimes chaos (not really) I have made a set of number cards to play the same way and am in the process of completing a set of word cards to be played the same way.
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