Are you looking for some easy ways to keep yourself and your dog entertained while locked in at your home? Here are 10 simple but fun activities to keep you and your dog busy at home:
1. Sniff out the treats:
Take some treats, like chopped up carrots, and try to hide them somewhere before cuing your dog to sniff them out. Using their natural skills will tire them up very quickly.
2. Shell Game:
Place a treat under one of the three cups in front of your dog, shuffle them around and encourage him to locate the treat.
3. Prepare Kong fillings
Stuffed Kong is very simple to prepare. You can fill them up using your dog’s favorite healthy treats. Keeping it frozen overnight will help it keep the dog occupied for at least 30 minutes while you’re busy with work.
5. Tug of War
It can be a fun activity to exercise mentally and physically without requiring much room. Letting your dog win will help you establish a better relation with it and help it maintain confidence. Make it realize that you’ll stop the game if its teeth touch your hands.
6. Train the dog to help you with chores
Something as simple as asking your dog to fetch your shoes can help them feel more useful. You can begin by teaching them the names of a few simple household items like slippers, door, towel, bag etc.
7. Interactive Games
Puzzle games, fetch, tug and find the treat are great interactive games that help your dog with lots of mental stimulation, impulse control and manners. They also help them get rid of bad habits like barking or chewing.
8. Let your dog earn its food
Dogs are scavenging animals naturally so asking them to work for their food isn’t an unusual thing to do – they’ll love to accept the challenge. Asking them to try and perform a trick before meals every day will provide good mental stimulation.
9. Hide and Seek!
While you might be a little too old to enjoy a game of hide and seek, your dog surely will. For this you’ll need to practice a lot of stay commands before getting started. Even if your dog’s stay response isn’t up to the mark, you can ask a family member or a friend to distract it while you go hide somewhere and call it from there.
10. Puzzle games
You can find tons of dispensable dog puzzle games online or even make one yourself following a simple DIY.
11. Shaping games
There are hundreds of things you can to a box and play with it. It’s a great way of giving a good teaching lesson and learn free shaping techniques. You can shape train with just about any other item too.
12. Create an indoor obstacle track
Create a makeshift obstacle course for your dog using blankets, pillows or towels. Such challenges help dogs stay mentally stimulated and also serves to boost focus. You can make them jump over a few items or get them to weave through its toys.
