During my training and canine behaviourist career, I have often found many common dog problems can be down to plain old boredom! The same daily routine, the same walks, a lack of mental stimulation. Here are some ideas for enriching your dog’s life and heading off many common problems (e.g . barking, destructiveness, over-excitability, recall issues)
- Vary your walks – Sounds simple but many dog owners do the same walk each day at the same times. Try walking at different times when possible, change your route, or even go around your usual route in the opposite direction. Change your pace – say “dogs name “ Quickly and speed up or “Slowly” and slow down.
- Enrich the walk – Take a ball, toy, or some treats on your walk. From time to time drop the ball or treats when your dog isn’t looking and get them to find/fetch them. Refresh some basic commands on the walk such as Sit & Stay in different places where your dog wouldn’t usually be asked to do this.
- Take your dog to swimming lessons! – If you have a breed that loves water you can find many animal hydrotherapy pools that will offer swimming lessons for your dog. Great exercise and may save your dog’s life if they decide to jump into a river or the sea and are not great swimmers.
- Play Find It! – A great game for inside or outside. Simply hide some treats or tennis balls/toys and give your dog the command Find It! If your dog is new to this or a young puppy then give them a helping hand by showing them where the treats,toys are. As your dog gets better at this then make the hiding places more tricky. Warning! This game can tire your dog out!
- Fetch! – Yes the good old fetch game – but there are ways to make this game more mentally challenging, and tiring. Try adding a delay before sending your dog to fetch, this simple change can really make your dog work harder. Throw the ball into some long grass which again makes the game more challenging. Try adding another ball – if your dog has never fetched more than 1 ball at a time then this will really throw him/her! I have had dogs in for training that could fetch over 10 balls!
- Hide and Seek – Play this in the house or outside. This puts the FUN back into Recall for everyone. If you have children then get them to hide and command your dog to Find! You can be even more adventurous and teach your dog to find a person by name!
- A simple Agility Course – Agility equipment such as jumps and tunnels can be bought cheaply online and often you can get old children’s play tunnels for free
- Grooming – spend some time grooming your dog as most dogs love the attention and the attention!
- Obedience Training – Teach your dog some new commands or refresh existing ones. Sit, Stay/Wait, Down, Roll Over, Paw etc Aim for short 5-minute training sessions
- Make your dog work for their food – if your dog is a fast eater then there are of course special bowls that will slow them down or you could add water to the food so that they have to lap it. Another idea if weather permits is to feed a meal in your garden, with dry food you could throw the food on the lawn and then your dog will spend some time seeking and eating. Indoors use a kong-type toy that you can stuff or use a snuffle mat again available at pet shops, online or you can make your own.
For more help with dog behaviour problems Keith offers a Remote Behaviour Service
https://www.keithfallondogschool.com/remote-support/
Associate Member of the CFBA