Pets of OMP: How To Keep Your Dog Busy

Hello, Old Mission!

We’ve had some milder weather the past few weeks, and my dogs are much happier to be outside and going on some walks around the village again. Winter gets long for them when they can’t be outside because of the cold temperatures. Or rather, the human in charge of them doesn’t want to be outside for too long! I also have some dogs who are getting to the age where their hips bother them, so the drifts in my field can be problematic.

I’ve had a lot of questions over the years on what to do when the fur-kids start acting up in the house and behaving like cranky toddlers, so I thought I would pass along some ideas. The number one thing I have learned from my work with professional trainers is that canines are innate hunters, and that all training — whether it’s in the winter or summer — should involve some component of our dogs working for their meals. There is no such thing as a free lunch! When January and February arrive and the dogs are all getting cabin fever, I dig out my tub of food toys and my list of tricks and make them work for their dinners. Half an hour of mental exercise is just as good as a long walk.

Below are three sections, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, for ways to make your dog comfortable with food exercises. As always, your dog should be supervised at first to make sure they don’t chew up the food toys. It is a good idea to start simply and slowly to ensure success. Since there are four dogs who live in my house, I also separate them when I bring out the food games just to avoid any squabbling. 

Beginning Level

Get your dog used to working for his food by starting with very simple tasks such as these:

• While your dog is in another room, take a portion of kibble and hide pieces in 5 to 10 different, but easily accessible, places in one or two rooms in the house — behind a chair, on the fireplace hearth, in the bathroom, under the desk, etc.  Let your pup in the room, and sit down and relax while his sniffer gets to work.

• Hide kibble in an empty box and let them figure out how to tip the box over to get the treats. When that gets easy, hide a box within a box.

• Buy some plastic ice cube trays from the Dollar Store, fill with kibble, and coat lightly with peanut butter over the kibble so puppy has to work a little harder.

• Fill a muffin tray half full of kibble and set a tennis ball in each cup. All my dogs are expert food hunters, and each of them has a different way to get the kibble out. Henry neatly takes all the tennis balls out and then eats the kibble. Maverick slides his tongue under the balls and scoops out the kibble. And Roxie and Dash both think this is the dumbest game EVER and just flip up the muffin tray, scattering kibble and tennis balls everywhere. 

NOTE: For those humans in my world that I bake fancy cupcakes for, I do NOT use the same muffin tin for the dogs lol.

Medium Level

This is where the fun really begins by incorporating easy puzzle toys and making your dog work her brain a bit more. Here are some ideas:

• Recently, when the snow was light and powdery, I scattered a box of plain Cheerios outside over several of my larger drifts and let the dogs get to work stomping them down. While not necessarily mentally stimulating, they certainly spent the better portion of an hour digging in the snow while I did the outside chores.

• I have pieces of PVC pipe left over from various projects, so one day when Henry was a puppy and annoying us while we were trying to work, my friend Judy took a small length of PVC, sealed off one end with a cap, put some freeze-dried liver in the PVC and stuffed the other end with an old rag. Henry had great fun figuring out how to get the food out. When that became easy for him, we then put the original PVC into a larger section of PVC. 

• There are some very simple food puzzles available that my dogs also like. The picture here is a spinner type with three levels to fill with kibble and then align all the levels up with each other. The dogs will eventually start pawing or nosing at the toy until the levels spin around revealing the treats.

Advanced Level

Your dog is a pro at hunting for his food now! I admit to going on a spending spree on Amazon during black Friday week last November, and I have quite the collection of complex puzzle toys to choose from. Also, thanks to my friend Pam who donated some excessively hard toys from her former dogs, Maverick spent quite a bit of time the other day figuring out how to unlock the bins that held the food. It amazes me how quick my dogs are at figuring them out. In the interest of full disclosure … it takes me longer to fill the complex toys than it does for the dogs to empty them!

• Complex puzzle toys usually involve some combination of tasks that the dog needs to do to get to her food. In this picture, Roxie must remove the white plastic dog bones in order to slide the red boxes to reveal kibble underneath, as well as flip up the red lids where there are more snacks. With Henry’s toy, he has to move a lever to open a hidden compartment, slide round knobs around to access kibble, and also slide all the square blocks around to get to the kibble compartments underneath.

• This activity is not necessarily a food oriented one, but it is something that requires a good level of training between you and your dog. I read this in a book and initially just rolled my eyes, but it really does cause your dog to work at paying attention to you. It’s very simple on your part – just pick a location and DON’T SPEAK to your dog at all for 30 minutes.  Hand signals or whistles are ok, but no verbal communication. I like to do this first thing in the morning when they all go outside and I’m not quite awake yet. Most people over-manage their dogs verbally anyway, and this exercise will force the dog to pay more attention. During the first 15 seconds when the dogs realize that I haven’t spoken to them, they are all “Huh? What’s going on? What should we do?” Very quickly, the eye contact from them becomes incredible and all of them are more focused on the hand signals to figure out what I want them to do. The bonus to practicing this exercise is that it becomes relevant for older dogs who may be starting to become deaf.

• The blow off trick. I call it that because I care not one bit if my dog can pick up the measuring cup from the floor, but this is a good game to play when it’s nasty outside, and it reinforces positive rewards training concepts. If you are not familiar with this concept – or do not use clicker training – then reach out to me via email at [email protected] if you are interested. The basic premise is twofold: 1) rewards for good behavior, and 2) all living creatures will do what has worked for them before. Read on…

Grab three things from the utensil drawer such as a rolling pin, a measuring cup, and a spatula. Decide what you want your dog to do, “I want my dog to touch the spatula with his nose.” Grab all three utensils, a dish of high level treats (i.e. dried liver, bits of hot dog, etc.) and call your pup in the room. In this example, the spatula is IT. Set the spatula on the floor and wait until your dog touches it with his nose. When he does, immediately use your clicker or reward by saying “Yes!” and feed your dog a treat. Wait until your dog noses the spatula again, click, and treat. Your dog should quickly figure out that nosing the spatula opens the cookie jar, and after he has done this a few times in a row, set another one of the utensils on the floor.  The dog will investigate it and look to you to see if he gets a treat. Treats are ONLY given when he touches the spatula. 

He may try all sorts of things to get a treat, like whining or laying down, but be patient. Eventually, he will go back and nose the spatula. Reward and give several treats. Let him nose the spatula a few times successfully for treats before putting the third utensil on the floor. By this time, most dogs won’t even look at the third item and will go right to the spatula. Let him get a few noses and rewards from touching the spatula and call an end to the game before it gets boring.

In addition to food games, winter is also when I clean out the old, gross toys in the basket. I have dust cloths that are in better shape than most of the dog toys. New toys are always fun, especially for the puppy, Dash (who is now 4 years old), and she has strewn my floors with all the cotton stuffing. Being a border collie, she often gets bored easily and will make up her own games around the house. Most of these are not human approved —  but that is another story!

Have fun, but keep in mind that our pets are living creatures and cannot be “programmed” like robots. Some ideas work better than others, just use your imagination. Also, I would love to hear how others keep their dogs occupied. Leave comments in the comment section at the bottom of this story.

-Paula Kelley, Pets Columnist, Old Mission Gazette

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