Indoor Activities for Dogs on Cold Days

It’s that time of year again when you could wake up to find the temperatures outside far too cold to take your canine friend out for a walk. How on earth are you going to tire them out? Too much pent up energy can lead to destruction and unwanted behaviours.

Here are a couple of ideas to give your dog some mental stimulation.

Treat balls: Try putting their morning or evening meal into a treat ball. They will have to work at it to feed themselves, rolling and nudging the ball around to get individual kibbles out. Hopefully, it will take 20 minutes or more to eat, having to figure out how to get their kibbles out provides both mental and physical exertion. Stryker owned by RVT Suzanne loves his Kong Wobbler.

Teach a new trick: Training is very mentally stimulating to your dog. Grab some treats and let’s teach Fido how to roll over, play dead, or speak.

Go Find it: Take a very yummy treat, show it to your dog, get them all excited about the treat. Then take it and hide it in the house and have your dog “Go find it”. This also works for meal time if your dog is on a calorie restricted diet or doesn’t get extra treats.

Puzzle toys/ chewy bones: These are all good ways of giving your dog something to do when they can’t go for a run. Just make sure to supervise the chewy bones.

Indoor fetch: if your house is big enough to facilitate, a good indoor version of fetch will help to tire out your tapped indoors pooch.