Thursday Tip: On the importance of mental stimulation It is widely known that dogs need to be walked daily to provide them with enough exercise and give them an outlet for all their energy. Dogs that don’t get walked can develop inappropriate behaviours such as digging, chewing furniture or incessant barking. But physical stimulation is not all – and if you own a high energy breed, no matter how much exercise you provide them with you will most likely not be able to tire them out – after all a lot of these dogs have been bred to work all day and there are very few owners who can keep their pet dog active for many hours a day – we do need to work, eat and rest, too! Mental stimulation for your dog is therefore a very good alternative to multiple walks, and for some dogs this will be the only way you can provide them with enough stimulation during the day. It might be that your dog is on limited exercise due to an injury, season or old age, or you are feeling unwell and can’t walk for miles. But even if you are able to provide your dog with their daily walk, mental stimulation is also an important add on to their day. Dogs that don’t get to use their brain on a daily basis tend to get bored and find their own way to entertain themselves – not always to our liking! Mental stimulation does not have to be complicated either and not all of it has to be time consuming if you don’t have an awful lot of time on your hands. One very good way of providing your dog with a brain work out is using food toys to feed his meals: you can get a variety of food toys, such as Kongs, from a pet shop, but you can also make your own, cheap versions out of cardboard boxes, scrunched up paper, egg boxes, plastic bottles etc. Another very good way of getting your dog’s brain going is daily portions of obedience training. Again, it doesn’t have to involve anything very taxing: simple tricks or obedience exercises such as sits, downs and recalls are fine too and the more practice your dog gets the better. You don’t have to set up specific training sessions: utilize every day situations such as when you feed your dog, put his lead on, open the door to go for a walk, and ask him to do something in each of those situations (so e.g. don’t let him eat his dinner until he has sat down and waited for you to put the bowl on the floor). Scentwork is another good way of working your dog’s brain (and nose of course!) without having to leave the house. Just get your dog to look for food hidden around the room or his favourite toy if he’s into toys. 20 minutes of scentwork will get your dog snoozing for hours! If you need more ideas on how to tire your dog’s brain, please let us know! Or if you know other ways of entertaining your dog without leaving the house, please post in comments – we would love to hear from you!
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:41:24 +0000
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