How you can keep your dog busy and entertained at home when you can’t explore the great Yorkshire outdoors?
How you can keep your dog busy and entertained at home when you can’t explore the great Yorkshire outdoors?
I’m not even sure what week we are now of lockdown? But I do know that our dogs and us are limited to the amount of exercise we can have outside each day.
Our pups are missing those coffee shop meet ups and of course their healthy handmade doggy treats from us here in Skipton, I’m sure you’re missing the award-winning coffee and homemade cake, too right?
Sorry the photos are just too much temptation!
So, we thought some tips and ideas of how to keep the pooches entertained at home might be really helpful at this time. Mental stimulation can really enrich our dog’s lives by giving them something meaningful to do. And because these activities alleviate boredom, they decrease the likelihood of our dogs developing behavioural issues such as excessive chewing or barking.
We have put together 5 easy fun ways to exercise those doggy brains:
- Get your dog working for their food or treats
Our dogs really have it pretty easy when is comes to meal time, we fill up their bowls and let them gobble it all up. So, instead why not try making a fun game next meal time? We have a few favourite methods to spice up meal time. Firstly, the slow feeder bowls helps your dog eat more slowly and adds some serious challenge to getting their paws on their kibble. Secondly, we love to use lick mats or treat toys stuff them with kibble, peanut butter + banana and then pop them in the freezer, hours of fun trying to lick all the yumminess out. Take a look at the Inooko slow feeders and the 2 in 1 dog bowl and lick mats or even the zee dog super fruitz dog treat toy
- Work on a new trick
My Max knows a few tricks (mainly sit, stay, lie down and he does know play dead 😊) But there are so many more tricks out there that he can learn. We think it a great way to have some extra bonding time and will really engage your pooch and get that brain working overtime. If you’re not sure what to try here’s a great link with 10 new tricks and some videos to help along too!
- Get their nose working out
As a Labrador Max loves to use his nose and ‘fetch’ or ‘go find’ its an excellent way for them to use their natural instincts. So, get yourself some smelly treats and go and hide them around the house!
- Give them a new toy and rotate the old one maybe even see if you can name the toys
Nobody wants to play with the same toy all the time so by switching them around it keeps it fresh and Max always gets excited when I get an old toy out the cupboard it’s like he’s never seen it before.
Take a look at these fun dog toys, we scour the market to select only the best quality dog toys our website gives them a toughness rating to help you select the best toy for your pup.
You could even then take it one step further and name all your dogs toys, so he can fetch them on command, this is a great helpful tool from the American Kennel Club with some ideas where to start. It’s a tough one but a fun one!
- Play some interactive games with your dog
Its time to really get involved in those doggy games, play some fetch, a little tug of war. Have you seen dogs play the shell game? Take a look at ‘Faith the Golden’ it’s just brilliant I cannot wait to have fun with this one.
Finally, an added extra I have seen so many of these on Instagram making the most of that spare toilet roll you have in the cupboard and explore the ‘101 Things to Do with Toilet Roll and Your Dog’ Facebook Group! Set up for some super-duper fun by North Yorkshire based dog trainer Jo Brook, this is one of the ways we can put all that extra toilet roll to good use!
Make sure you check out our social media pages we are going to have a go at this with our Labrador Max!
If you have enjoyed any of the games please let us know just comment via our social media or you can even tag us in you and pooch having some fun doing any of the games, we really would love to see you having some doggy game fun!