Tips for playing indoors

Nothing’s worse than boredom for a dog. Our tips will bring home some variety for you and your dog.

Dogs want activities and attention at home, as well. If the weather is bad, searching games and various tricks can also take place indoors. Brain games are making your dog tired, too. Many things from the household can easily be used as a dog toy. Old towels, shirts or jeans (please remove buttons and other small things) are suited as dog toy and socks can be used as dummies for retrieving. The dog should be monitored while playing with the selfmade toys.

Find out what your dog likes.

Of course, not every dog is the same. Therefore it is essential to find out what appeals the most to your dog. At the end, it’s all about having fun with each other. And with suited treats almost every dog gets motivated.

We collected a few ideas as a suggestion for you. Of course, many more games are possible.

Hiding
Hide some treats in the room (maybe start together with your dog) and let the dog search for it. Once the dog understands the game, it can wait outside the room. During the game, the hiding place should be changed, so there is no routine in searching.

Thimblerig
At first, your dog has to learn to grab a toy or treat from underneath an object. Show your dog that you are putting something underneath the object (e.g. bowl, plastic cup, transparent box) and call your dog to grab it. Reluctant dogs that are familiar with the clicker can be motivated by clicker-training: first acknowledge the approach, then the nudging and at last tilting the object. If this is learned, the amount of “caps” can be enhanced, while only one cap hides something.

Tricky places
For this game, the treat gets hidden on a place that is hard to reach for the dog. This time it’s not about searching, rather about getting the treat.
Various places are good for hiding. It is important that the dog is not able to simply reach the hiding-place with its snout and has to use its paws. If you don’t have fitting places, you can use carton boxes with scrunched papers and treats in between.

Agility course
Using your imagination, you can build up an obstacle course in your home. Appropriate obstacles are e.g. a “slalom” around a half-full plastic bottle, a “tunnel” made of sheets or towels that are laid over two chairs. A broomstick is suitable as a jump and a plank or a ladder that is laid on books realizes a runway.
But please check that there are no edges or other in the dog’s way, where it can hurt itself.

Dog Dancing
This is fun for dog and human. Turn on your favourite song and motivate your dog to do some exercises with you: slalom through your legs, walking backwards, turns or sit up and beg. These exercises lined up make a great choreography.

Play dead
Not every trick has to make sense – some can just be used to impress friends. With the command “play dead”, the dog falls down and remains laying on the ground. First of all, start by giving the command “down” and lure the dog into a position on its side, using treats. The next step is getting the dog remaining still on the ground. If the dog knows “stay”, it can be used. Otherwise the dog should be rewarded when it’s remaining. As soon as the dog is lying reliably, the hand can be moved away. The last step is using the hand move while giving the command, so the dog gets the connection.