Here are a few boredom busting ideas!!!!!!!

We often get asked for ideas on how to entertain puppies and these are just a few that we have found to be successful. We’re not dog trainers and different ideas work for different dogs so feel free to ignore them all or adapt as needed!

Hide and seek – if you can get your dog to sit and wait and then you can hide a treat or a favourite toy around the house or garden – make sure he/she see’s you with it but not where you put it. Once hidden, return to your dog and tell them to ‘find it’ or ‘go find’ or any command that works for you. The first few times they may not completely understand what’s going on but most dogs pick it up pretty quickly, particularly if they’re treat orientated and it’s a treat you’ve hidden. Once they’ve found it be sure to give them lots of praise and attention. A few games of this and you’ll notice your dog will start to tire pretty quickly. Giving a dog a job and mentally stimulate can really tire them out.

Treat/Feed balls – Lots of clients say that they feel guilty leaving they’re dogs when they go to work or that they aren’t interested in they’re food. I’ve found that making it into a game is much more enticing for them. Once they’ve had their morning walk and you’re just about to go out, pop down the feed ball and leave them to roll that around and eat they’re breakfast. Dogs often want something when they have to work for it. It does generally only work for kibble though! We feed Sampson raw food and I wouldn’t recommend a feed ball for that!! You could use it for treats instead though!

Puppies love destroying things and it can take up to a year before they’ve completely stopped teething, sometimes longer! We did crate train Sampson but he soon outgrew the crate and we didn’t have room for a huge one so we left him in one room and tried to move everything higher so he couldn’t destroy it. We also left him a cardboard box with a toy in (we’d rotate his toys so he wouldn’t have all his toys available at one time – try and keep him interested in them) and newspaper and some treats. We’d come home and the box and newspaper would be destroyed, he’d be crashed out and nothing else would be destroyed. Some people don’t agree with this method as they think it’s encouraging a dog to destroy and some people, like us, have had great success with it where nothing else apart from what we give him has been destroyed.

These are just a few ideas but feel free to email us for more tips.