The Purrfect Nanny & Purrfect Pet Health Blog

Whether your family exchanges gifts around a Christmas tree or exchanges gifts each night during Hanukkah, chances are your mind has recently turned to gift giving. For us pet lovers, that often includes our furry family members as well.

Particularly for dogs, the right ‘gift’ can make a huge difference in their happiness and fulfillment day-to-day.

Dogs are pack animals. They’re loyal and socially dependent on their ‘pack’ — which is you and your family! When you aren’t around, they may become lonely or even dreadfully bored! Many behavior problems like crying, barking, chewing, digging and other destructive behaviors can be a direct symptom of boredom.

Recently, while trying to solve a problem for a friend’s dog who is probably one of the world’s most TERRIBLE chewers, I came across a great article on how to keep dogs mentally stimulated. I’ve included excerpts below, as well as a link to the full article. Through the online article, you can further link to “Instructions on how to creatively stuff KONG toys!”, “How to clicker train your dog” and a chart on three common types of rawhide that the author feels are “Good” vs. “Dangerous”, including pictures of each.”

BORED DOGS ARE DESTRUCTIVE DOGS

After you’ve been gone for awhile, your dog quits sulking and starts looking for something to do other than lie around bored in an empty house all day.

Enter destructive behavior. They live for the moment their pack returns. But in the meantime…
They may help themselves to your socks, shoes, or clothing left lying around, your furniture, your kitchen cabinets, your child’s stuffed animals, or whatever they can find to relieve their boredom.
So your dog — who protects you and loves you — now creates frustration when you return home from wherever you’ve been.
What to do…?

Most dogs don’t get enough mental stimulation to be satisfied and happy. Behavior problems are nearly always the result.

Solutions include:

DOG COMES ALONG: Take your dog with you when you go places.

FEEDING ROUTINE: Get your dog on a twice-a-day feeding routine IMMEDIATELY. Dogs are pre-programmed to work very hard and be very excited about food. If your dog has a food bowl on the floor that he picks at all day, this is BORING.

KONGS AS MEAL REPLACEMENTS: Please note: If your dog is not on a proper feeding routine, you cannot use this as mental entertainment. Your dog will not work hard to get the food out. He will lick at it a few times and leave it. If he is on a proper feeding routine, he will work VERY hard to de-stuff the KONG and it is the same as a difficult crossword puzzle or a math problem…after he’s done, he will shake himself, lie down, and probably sleep. This is high-level mental entertainment! Even a very young puppy can easily dissect the beginner-level KONG described below.

Dogs initially try to de-stuff KONGS by simply licking at them and following them as they are pushed by the licking. As time goes by, however, you will see your dog learning extremely creative and effective ways to de-stuff. Some dogs jam them into a certain corner of the kitchen, or learn how to fix them in place with their paws to dissect. Many dogs actually learn to drop them down stairwells and then clean up the stuff that falls out, or climb onto furniture and drop them to the floor!

Because some of the items in a KONG can be messy, please offer the KONG somewhere that you do not mind wiping up if necessary. You can offer KONGS in a crate if you wish.

Buy at least two Kongs that are the largest size that your dog can pick up. For most dogs above 15 pounds, the size LARGE is what you will want (about the size of a large fist). Black is the strongest KONG, red is the next strongest, and most other non-brand-name KONG type toys are crap and your dog will be able to rip them to pieces easily. They cost less but it’s not worth it.
Offer KONGS as meal replacements as often as possible.
Stuff KONGS creatively and offer as meal replacements as often as possible. NOTE: KONGS are dishwasher-safe. Other brands of similar toys may not be.

KIBBLE HUNTING: Do you have a fenced backyard or a grassy area where you can be sure the dog will not ingest pesticides or fertilizers? If so, measure out your dog’s kibble in a bowl and go outdoors with him. Throw the kibble into the grassy area, making sure to spread it as far as possible. Sit down in a lawn chair and read a good book while your dog roots around to find each kibble.

CRATE/BED SURPRISE: If your dog can be relied on not to chew towels, this is a fun method that not only allows the dog to have fun hunting his food, but also can be used to get a dog happier being in a crate.

Take dog out of the room and place 5 large bath towels in messy layers in his crate or on his bed. Within the messy layers, hide his kibbles and a few tasty (but dry or semi-soft) treats. Bring dog back into room and allow him to discover the treasure trove on his own (don’t point him at it, that’s too easy!), and watch as he systematically paws through the bath towels to find every last morsel.

FROZEN TOWEL PUZZLE: Go to the secondhand store and buy several thick bath or dish towels. Soak in broth, wring out extremely well, and make into long skinny “sticks.” Place treats on the towel and tie a loose knot over the treats. Try to get several knots into each towel. Freeze hard and offer dog OUTSIDE (this is a pretty messy thing to offer for indoors). SUPERVISE YOUR DOG and do not leave him unattended with these items!!! If he is attempting to ingest strings, take it away as this is extremely dangerous. What most dogs do is immediately detect the treats within the loose knots and go to work untying the knots. I repeat, DO NOT give this to an unattended dog! This puzzle is great if you live in a hot climate and want to cool the dog off.

RAWHIDE: Rawhide is a favorite of most dogs and can be used to provide mental entertainment. HOWEVER, care should be taken to supervise the dog when chewing on rawhide, and only a certain kind of rawhide should be offered. If you offer the wrong kind of rawhide, it presents a very significant danger to your dog.
Pressed rawhide ONLY
Buy the largest bones your dog can possibly pick up. DO NOT buy rawhide, pressed or otherwise, that the dog can fit well into their mouth. This includes chips, sticks, and other widely available rawhide products.
I repeat, do not leave your dog unattended with rawhide products, no matter what the type.

CLICKER TRAINING: Training your dog to offer behaviors using clicker training is a superb way to offer mental stimulation without worries. A 5-minute clicker session is a “brain drain” for a properly prepared dog. You don’t even have to have a goal in your training! Who cares if you never go anywhere with what the dog is doing? I do this often with my own dogs. It is their absolute favorite activity…they will leave a delicious KONG to work for the click. They will tear down doors if they hear me working with another dog!

TEACHING TRICKS/OBEDIENCE: Teach dog a number of silly tricks and functional obedience behaviours like sit/down/stay/stand and then ask the dog to do them throughout the day when they want something like petting, going outside, leash walks, ball games etc. Teach a variety so that you can ask for different things, always keeping the dog guessing what’s next.

TAKING CLASSES: If you can manage to take an obedience, agility, flyball, frisbee, stockdog, lure coursing, Rally-O, or any other type of regular training class, do it! Even if you don’t need to “learn” anything, your dog will get MASSIVE amounts of mental stimulation from the activity.

DOGGIE BUDDIES: Find a friend who has a nice dog, and arrange for a 30-60 minute play date once a week. Try to go for a free run/woods-walk with the playmate so that the dogs can sniff out bugs and mice and read the pee-mail and leave some of their own.

RETRIEVAL GAMES: If your dog likes to play ball or frisbee, add a “mental component” to it by asking the dog for a different obedience behaviour or trick before each throw. Then, throw the item creatively…sideways, out front, backwards, straight up in the air, long, short…keep the dog guessing. A good enriched retrieval session of 5-10 minutes can leave the dog mentally satisfied and physically exercised (and plus, you don’t even have to walk…I’m lazy, can you tell?) You can do retrieval games with dogs that do not have a good recall by using a long line/Flexi lead, or by going to a ball diamond or tennis court. For extra exercise, get a Chuckit and really fling that ball!

BUSY WALKS: Take your dog to a busy area and hang out for 15 minutes. The Wal-Mart parking lot, a softball game, a town fair, any outdoor event is super. If you live in an area where there is a large pet store that allows dogs to enter, that’s great too (but please boycott any pet stores that sell puppies!). The sights, smells, and interaction with people are all new and interesting items for the dog to take in and will mentally exhaust the dog. If your dog is anxious in environments such as this, please start remedial socialization and use less challenging environments at first.