The rains are finally here. And it looks like it will be raining all week. I stopped walking around in the rain when Fred and I stopped patrolling train yards. However, without their daily walks, entertaining dogs on rain days is difficult. So, to stop you pulling your hair out and to stop your dog destroying your house. Here are some training games you can play with your dog to entertain them when you can go for walks.
Come Find Me
This is a great game to play with your dog. You either need a dog with a really solid stay (so they’ll stay in a room while you go hide) or someone to help play the game with you. Using their nose and searching is one of the most exhausting things a dog can do. It requires a lot of brain power. And because the whole house smells like you, it will make it more difficult for them. It’s the perfect game for a rainy day, especially if you have kids that will do the hiding.
- Start off simple, while the dog is learning the rules of the game you want to make it easy to win. So hide behind the door in the next room or something so they almost run into you. When they find you give them lots of praise.
- Once they understand “find me” means they have to search for you, become more creative about where you hide. Move furniture, hide in boxes, under bed covers, in cupboards. If you can find away to hide above the dogs normal line of sight so they have to think in three dimensions.
- If you’re playing with the kids, teach the dog that they have to find only the kid who’s name you call. The way you do this is that only the kid that is called is allowed to react to the dog, the rest of the kids have to play statue.
Rain Day Puzzle Treats
This requires some investment and planning. You will need a toy like a Kong or any number of puzzle games that you can hide treats in. Once you have taught the dog how the game works they will have to unlock the combination to get the treats. Unless they’re like my security dog and they just throw the puzzle and pick up all the treats. A Kong with peanut butter does take them a decent amount of time regardless of their destructive capability. Dogs find chewing relaxing and entertaining, so anything that they are allowed to chew is a good treat for rainy days.
Scent Discrimination
This is like the shell game, where you put a ball under a cup and then move the cups around and someone has to guess which one has the ball.
- Get some party cups and poke holes in the bottom. This is so the scent can come out.
- You need an old rag or hanky. Wipe some sweat off you and then place the hanky with the sweat in the cup with the holes facing up. Let your dog see what you’re doing the first few times.
- Start with one cup only. Let the dog smell you then say search. If the dog immediately shows interest in the cup reward them. Otherwise you may have to lead them to it a few times to give them the idea.
- When they go to the one cup with the smell reliably on ‘Search’. Add another cup about a ruler distance away from the first cup. Keep the smelly item in the first cup for now. The goal is for them to ignore the not smelly cup so we want to make it easy while they’re learning.
- When they ignore the not smelly cup and go for the smelly cup in when they’re in the same position then swap them. When they figure out that you changed it start moving the cups around the house. And stop letting them see which cup you put the smell in.
- 15 minutes of this game will tire them out for many hours.
I’ll add pictures to his post later guys. And I’ll probably edit it a bit too. I just wanted to get it out quickly encase anyone needed to amuse their dogs when they can’t walk them. If you have any other ideas for entertaining your dogs on rainy days, share them in the comments.
