Rainy day games

When the weather is too bad to go for your long daily walk, try indoor games. They’re good to get your dog’s mind engaged, and will make them tired too.

Seek and hide

Take a couple of smelly and tasty treats and hide them all over your place. Make the first round easy and then start to make it a bit harder. Put some on the shelf over your dog’s head, but not too high so they can still reach it. And hide them underneath things. Try to use different spots every time, as dogs tend to go first to places where they found the treat last time. Take into account their daily intake of food – if you use lots of treats, make their dinner a bit smaller or make them work for it – use their food portion to play.

You can swap treats for a favourite toy. If they don’t already know the command “find it”, then say it every time they go for it. It will become useful on the walk if you loose the toy (or you can lose it on purpose – it’s great exercise!)

You can also use yourself as a ‘thing’ to seek.

Dog ‘zen’

This game is for teaching your dog to be patient. Sit down in front of your dog, take a couple of treats and close them in your fist. Let them see what you are doing. Then place your fist in front of their face – let them smell, lick, bark. As soon as they understand that it does not get them anywhere – you want them to back off from your hand and be calm – quickly open your fist, take one treat and give it to them, saying ‘good!’. Don’t say anything during the exercise – you want their brain to work out what is expected of them. On the next round wait a little bit longer until they get their treat.

Puzzle games

There are some great games by Nina Ottosson. They vary in difficulty and each game is a little bit different, but all of them make your dog THINK!

If you don’t have one at home you can make your own – take a muffin tray, place the treats inside and cover them with tennis balls. Don’t put treats in all the holes.

Teach a new command

It’s as easy as it sounds. Pick a command and work on it. It could be anything, just keep the training session short, and be happy with whatever result you end up with. Next time it will be better, and dogs can feel if you’re disappointed with them.

Ideas: high-five, roll over, touch it, show your belly, look at me, turn around.

Chair game

This game involves some thinking as well as body exercise. Take a chair or step stool and teach your dog to go under, around, over, and make them jump on it and stay there. Vary the combinations.

Stay… and fetch!

Hopefully you have enough space to play ‘mini’ house-fetch. Make your dog sit, then wait, throw the toy and let them fetch it. Make a big fuss when they bring it. This game engages your dog’s mind by training ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ commands, and burns off some energy with the fetching.

Tug of war

My favourite toy for this game is Kong Wubba. Not only can you play tug of war with it, but it squeaks so is even more exciting for a dog!