3 Easy Ways to Entertain Your Dog Indoors

It’s an unavoidable fact of life that there will be times where you will need to find indoor dog enrichment activities for your dog, to keep them happy, occupied and potentially, to prevent destructive behaviours caused by your dog finding things to do on their own.

When the weather doesn’t allow for outdoor fun and activities, when you’re busy, or when your dog is stuck in doors due to current events such as the current covid-19 restrictions, it is essential to find ways to provide your dog with enrichment.

Indoor dog friendly games, in our opinion, should be focused on occupying your dog’s brain more than playing high energy or exciting games. Our reasoning for this, is that if your dog is allowed to play excitedly inside the home, the expectation is set that excited, or high intensity behaviours are allowed indoors, which can lead to a range of unwanted behaviours down the track.

1. Stuffed Kongs for Dogs

• What You’ll Need: Treats / Raw balanced pet mince / Xylitol free peanut butter

• How It works: Start by making the task of getting the dog treat or dog food out of the Kong toy. Once your dog understands how the Kong works and how to get the food out, you can then increase the difficulty i.e freezing the Kong with the food inside

• Purpose: By making your dog work out how to get the food out of the Kong your dog will use a fair amount of mental and physical energy

2. Marker Training

• What You’ll Need: Treat Pouch / Training Treats (i.e Ziwi Peak) + an optional clicker

• How It Works: If you’ve never used markers before, you’ll need to spend time conditioning or “loading” your marker (whether that is a verbal marker or a clicker) This means that you’ll spend time teaching your dog to associate the word or clicker noise with a treat. Do this by working in a quiet, low distraction room, where you’ll say your marker, or click your clicker, then drop the treat for your dog to eat. You’ll know when your dog has made the association between the word / click, when they react strongly to the word or click.

• Purpose: By teaching your dog to value your markers, you can then start using them in other obedience and behaviour training exercises, which is great for draining your dog’s mental and physical energy.

3. Dog Puzzle Toys

• What You’ll Need: Puzzle toys (i.e Kong Quest) and appropriately sized treats

• How it works: With such a wide variety of dog puzzle toys to choose from, you’ll have a great rotation to provide your dog with, so that they’ll never be bored or lacking appropriate stimulation

Dog puzzle toys such as: Treat balls / snuffle mats / lickimats / kong quest / starmark, are all great options.

• Purpose: Dog puzzle toys are often a great option for “home alone” toys. Some aren’t chew proof though, so if you have a heavy chewer, make sure their pizzle toys are suitable and safe for unsupervised play.

Whether your dog is stuck inside because of ruff weather, or you simply need more help providing your dog with appropriate mental stimulation to satisfy their natural drives, these 3 easy ways to entertain your dog are sure to provide an excellent way to tire out your dog and keep them out of mischief.

Want to learn about more ways to combat dog behaviour problems caused by boredom?

Send us a message via our contact form to speak with Mary Puppins canine behaviour training specialist.