Mental stimulation ideas

[KateandPolly]

Hi there

Can anyone give me some ideas on what I can do to give my dog some mental stimulation.  Others on this site often mention that mental stimulation is very good for their dogs and is a good way of tiring them out  , we play hide and seek around the house and have taught her various commands - sit, stay, paw, bed, walk, down but what other training ideas have you got. 

Thanks.

Kate x

[Jan/Billy]

I play "find it" where I hide food and Billy has to find it. I know some people use toys but Billy will only hunt for food 


We play it indoors every day. Then at weekends I take him to a big field and hide bits of smelly cheese which he has to find. Billy absolutely loves it.

Frozen kongs are ok too, they keep them busy for a short while

[Cob-Web]

Sounds like you are doing great 

Molo is not very bright, and so a few sessions of obedience are enough to tire him out - and we do have some practice agility equipment to use, too.  Bonnee is brighter and so we are enhancing her repertoire - lil'bit has taught her roll over and she is learning paw, etc etc.  Find it is always a good game, and puzzles are excellent - wrap up treats in small pieces of newspaper, or cardboard boxes. One I use on fine days is to throw their kibble-dinner across the lawn for them to sniff out; great when the grass is a bit too long, they really have to use their noses  We also use every day situations as "stimulation" - I ask them both to sit and wait to be released when I open the door or feed them, they will be sent to their "beds" while we are cooking, and we recall many times a day from elsewhere in the house or garden 

If you want to see how far you can go, search the old posts by Mark (TopBarks). He has taught his dogs some fabulous tricks, including getting a beer from the fridge 

[Ian B]

We play 'treasure hunt' with our two dogs.

I hide little pieces of Frolic around the house and they will spend an hour and a half searching the place from top to bottom.
Most of the treats are hidden off the floor so they have to think up as well as left & right.

The most amazing thing they both do is to begin a room search by trotting into the middle and then free-standing on their hind legs and stretching as much as they can to get their noses as high as possible.

[ludo]

have you tried the Dog Brick (Ottenson, Sweden) - it is fun - involves the dog learning to move sliding doors with his nose/paw to retrieve the treats underneath - Dax loves it 

[Doggone Mad]

have you tried the Dog Brick (Ottenson, Sweden) - it is fun - involves the dog learning to move sliding doors with his nose/paw to retrieve the treats underneath - Dax loves it 

That sounds interesting.  Where did you get it from ?

[Ben's mum]

I had a book called Dog tricks for dummies - I worked thorugh loads of things with Ben.  His favourite though is 'tidying up' I throw his toys out of the toy box and he retrieves each one in turn and drops it in the box until they are all tidyed up.  (been trying to teach OH the same thing, but hes not pickred it up like Ben )

I taugh him names for all the individual toys so he can collect each one on command. 
I do all sorts of funny things with middles of kitchen rolls and bits of cardboard! Ben has to work out how to get to the food, by pulling out a piece of card threaded through the middle to make the food fall out.

We bought a tunnel and indoor weaves or you can make your own
as others have said hiding food and making them find it.
we bought a plank of wood for walking along and balancing to get used to the idea of the dog walk in agility.

Have fun

Bens mum

[ludo]

have you tried the Dog Brick (Ottenson, Sweden) - it is fun - involves the dog learning to move sliding doors with his nose/paw to retrieve the treats underneath - Dax loves it 

That sounds interesting.  Where did you get it from ?

http://www.traininglines.co.uk - the link is here - there are other sites as well that do them but you can get all sorts of variations on the theme here.  Enjoy.