Winter Boredom

The Healthy Bark

Winter boredom is not just a human occurrence, our pets can get bored as winter sets in as well. There are a lot of fun things you can do with them when the days are just too cold to be outside.
One of my babies favorite games was to find treats, they were scent hounds so making it a challenge was fun for all. I started out with a box and a treat inside, they would tip the box over and behold a nice surprise was to be had. As they learned this I made it harder, put a box inside a box and close the flaps. This could be anywhere from 2-5 boxes inside each other. They had a blast opening them and pushing them around, and the cats liked the empty boxes to play in, so win win for all.

Puzzle games are available all over the place these days, from beginner to expert levels. Choose the level your pet is so they learn to enjoy working for something. There are also stuffer's you can buy, these let you stuff treats inside and they have to get them out. May favorite were ones I could fill with either a mix or dehydrate style foods, or even a packaged raw food and freeze. I do not recommend peanut butter for a few reason. Peanuts are one of the most pesticide sprayed crops we have now, and a lot of brands are now adding xylitol instead of sugar (neither is good but xylitol is deadly), if you feel like you need to use peanut butter than go organic.

Teach some new tricks, this is always a plus as you can work on training such as stay, sit, come, or the more advanced ones. Dogs love to please and love to learn, so make use of the time you have to spend indoors on the cold winter days.

Puppies can lose interest very fast, so watch for signs that they are no longer interested in what you are doing. You can limit puppy training to 15 minutes, than go for some play time as a nice reward for being good. Host a puppy play day with friends that have puppies about the same age. This way you can take turns having them over to your house to play and they get to socialize as well.