Exercising your dogs’ brain is just as important as physical exercise! Brain games will help stimulate your dog, keep them busy and even can help tire them out! Mental stimulation enriches our dogs’ lives by giving them something meaningful to do and accomplish. Plus, by keeping your pup busy and stimulated it will help to alleviate boredom which decreases behavioral issues such as anxiety, chewing, and barking! These five tips will help you enrich your dog’s life on a daily basis!
Have Your Dog Work for Their Food: Our dogs have it pretty easy when it comes to mealtime, most of us just drop a bowl in front of them twice a day and hurray! Your dog munches it down before you have time to turn around! So, if you want to try adding in a brain stimulation to an everyday routine, you can make your dog work for their food a little more. We love adding our dog’s dinner into a dispensing toy! Your dog will LOVE chasing around the toy while their dinner pops out one at a time! This is great for fast eaters to help slow them down and digest better.
Let Your Dog Sniff & Explore on Walks:Let’s face it going on a walk is the best part of your dog’s day. To enhance the walking process for your dog, allow them to sniff and explore along the way. Stopping to allow your dog to sniff and follow a sent is a great way to stimulate their brain. You will be surprised how tiered your dog gets after a sensory enriched walk opposed to a regular walk, the combination of physical exercise in addition to brain stimulation will highly satisfy your dog!
Make an Obstacle Course for Your Dog:Teaching your dog how to go through an obstacle course is a great way to stimulate their brain. If you don’t have agility jumps or poles at home no problem, just arrange a DIY obstacle course in your living-room or back-yard with household items and furniture. The benefit of an obstacle course is the exciting mental workout for your dog as well as the physical exercise benefits. Getting your dog to focus on multiple things at once as well as learning new commands with helping them with impulse control and better behavior!
Engage in more Interactive Play with Your Dogs: Our dogs loving playing with us and engaging in interactive play is one of the easiest ways to keep them mentally stimulated. Even though we don’t think of playing a game of fetch or tug-a-war with our dog is very stimulating it’s a great way to get your dog’s brain thinking and activated. Interacting with your dog also strengthens your bond with them!
Teach Your Dog A New Trick:Has your pup mastered sit, stay and come? Don’t worry there are a bunch of tricks your dog can learn to help boost their mental stimulation. Teaching your dog, a new command or trick will keep them on their toes and help increase your dog’s focus and impulse control, resulting in a well-mannered dog! Teaching new tricks to dogs who are shy or nervous helps boost their confidence and strengthen the bond between you and them!
