Games To Play Indoors With The Dog When It Rains
Winter is almost upon us. It often rains and we spend a lot more time closed in the home. To prevent the bad season from catching us unprepared, it is best to have a plan of attack and think about how to entertain our dog at home. For this reason, today we want to give you some tips on games to play indoors with your dog when it rains.
Why play with the dog?
Play is one of the most important activities to carry out with your dog: it strengthens your bond and helps the animal to vent the accumulated energy, thus avoiding the onset of anxiety and stress related disorders.
Much of a dog’s mental health and emotional well-being is related to the amount of activity it performs. The dog needs to “do”, to be busy.
Playing games that stimulate your dog’s intelligence and intrigue him is essential, especially to prevent him from getting bored when you can’t go outside.
Situations to avoid when playing at home
The onset of various behavioral problems depends on boredom and excessive accumulation of energy, such as:
- Urination on objects and in various corners of the house.
- Damage to objects.
- Excessive barking.
- Stress-related diseases.
For this reason, we want to give you some ideas on which games to play with your dog that will contribute to both his physical and mental wellbeing:
Treasure hunt
A perfect game on rainy days is just one that is based on the dog’s favorite activity: sniffing and searching.
The game is very simple:
Hide a snack or treats while the dog is in another room. Next, let him in and show him where to look by ordering him to “search”.
Maybe at first it will take him a while to find the prize. Don’t worry, because he will understand the dynamics of the game in a nutshell.
Hide and seek
Another very fun game for your dog is hide and seek. There are two ways to play hide and seek:
- Ask a family member to hold the dog while you look for a hiding place. Then, when you are ready, tell the person to let the dog go. Try to get the dog’s attention without being too obvious. You will see how it will begin to look for you everywhere.
- If you have some space, you can throw the ball at him, or another game. As soon as the dog goes to get the ball, hide. Upon his return, the animal will start looking for you like a madman because he wants to keep playing.
The game of the ladder
You don’t know it and it seems complicated to you? Well, it isn’t. The ladder game is perfect for those dogs that have a lot of energy. It often happens that at the end of the game, the owner is exhausted and instead the dog is still lively and full of energy.
The objective of this game is to make the dog tired by using the normal objects and elements of the house. In this case, we are referring, of course, to the scale. Grab his favorite game, pull him down the stairs and order him to go get it.
As soon as he brings it back, throw it at him again. You will see how, in addition to having fun, he will get tired.
Games designed for you
Remember that to entertain your dog, creativity is your main tool. You don’t need to spend money on very complicated, and very expensive, games.
You only need to use those items that are sized to suit your pet, are sturdy and are not made of harmful or dangerous materials.
You can indulge yourself in finding materials with which to build toys for your dog: rag balls, sticks, etc. The most important thing is to think right away about how to entertain your dog at home, to prevent the bad season from taking you by surprise.
