We’ve recently shared some of our favourite 5 interactive toys that you can buy for your dog. But there’s a problem, sometimes you just don’t want to spend the money or don’t have the money for these interactive puzzle toys and there’s a solution. You can make perfectly good challenges for your dog with items you have in your home!
Basically, an interactive dog toy is just a sort of puzzle for them to complete where usually they will also be rewarded. You just need to think up a way to give your dog a challenge, ‘what would be something hard?’. Then, try to incorporate something to make it engaging for them – like a treat!
If you can’t think up your own ones, we have a list here for you!
Nosework Activities
This is one of our favourite things to set up for dogs. It gets their nose to work and stimulates their brain. Nose work is self-explanatory, your dog uses their nose to work for something.
To do this we recommend getting a handful of treats and put your dog in another room. You can set this activity up anywhere, in a room of your house, in your garden, across multiple rooms etc. Another way of thinking about this is that you are basically making a ‘treasure hunt’ for your dog.
You need to scatter these treats around and basically hide them. If you’re outside then the blades of grass will hide them well, if you’re inside then put them next to legs of the table, on top of things (like a chair), under things. There are two things to remember in this:
- You are not hiding the treats for a 12-year-old kid: your dog can’t reach too high places and will not know to look in the most complex and hidden spots.
- You are not hiding the treats for a baby: unless this is on grass, scattering the treats on the floor right in front of your dog won’t make it much of a challenge. Make them move around and look around, using their nose for treats.
The final step: Unleash the hounds! Let your dog enter the area and start sniffing for the treats. This should be teaching them to use their nose and put it to work whilst also stimulating their brain and giving them a fun activity to do. Plus, it’s simple and easy for you to set up!
Hide and Seek
For this activity, you will need help from a friend. It’s basically a catch on the classic game ‘Hide and Seek’ but with this version you are including your dog in on all the fun! Basically, imagine it like this: your dog is the seeker, and you are the hider!
To start you will need to get a friend to hold your dog, otherwise they might follow you or watch what you are doing! Then you need to run away and go and hide (not too hard but also not too easy). If it is a big room then you might want to hide in the same room, if it is small, you might want to find somewhere else to hide.
Go and hide and let out a verbal cue like ‘find me!’, then your friend should release your dog and let them come and find you. Your friend might also encourage the dog to search by saying something like ‘Where’s *your name*?’. If you must keep calling your dog a few times, then that is fine. Once they find you reward them with lots of praise!
Homemade interactive toys
If you don’t want to buy toys online or just don’t have the money to purchase them then we have a solution for you! You can easily make challenges for your pooch at home with everyday items! For example, do you have old t-shirts that you simply don’t need or containers in your kitchen waiting to be used? If yes, then perfect! Here we’ll share two of our favourite and most useful homemade puzzle toys.
If you have any old clothing or any sort of fabric that is safe for dogs, then here’s what to do:
- Rip up your fabric into something you can weave together (like 3 strands)
- Weave these together to create a tight rope.
- You can also knot the fabric or roll it and knot it etc, – get creative!
- Stuff some treats into the toy and let your dog sniff and pull them out.
This is a great way to repurpose old clothing that you don’t need whilst also keeping your dog busy.
Our second homemade toy involves everyday containers. All you must do is get a few, put a treat in the first one, then stack or fit another container on top, repeat this a few times and you have a great puzzle! Basically, what they must do is remove the container that is on top of the treat (acting like a sort of lid) and then repeat this a few times for every reward. For this one, you will need to supervise your dog when completing this, just to make sure that they don’t decide your containers are a good chew toy…
Peanut Butter Bowl (Homemade Licki Mats)
Licki mats are fantastic but maybe sometimes it’s in the wash or you don’t have one, well you can fix that. There is a super simple at home alternative. Of course, we would recommend investing in an actual Licki Mat over this but if that is something that you can’t do then a homemade variation is fine.
To make this you need a plastic bowl and some sort of filling (something you would put in an actual Licki Mat that your dog can lick) for example, we like to use unsalted peanut butter. You are basically going to put a pile of the peanut butter in the middle of your plastic bowl and spread it all around with the back of a spoon. Make sure it’s all over the bottom and inside sides of the bowl, making a nice licking activity for your dog.
This of course, doesn’t present the same challenges for your dog that a Licki Mat does – resulting in this activity not lasting as long and not quite as affective strategy to calm your dog. However, it is still a great emergency alternative.
Stimulating Walk
A daily walk is great to exercise your dog, but there are also methods that can make it mentally stimulating for them. You basically just want to make their walk interesting. You want to keep them engaged and excited to know ‘what’s next?’.
To do this just change your pace. Every now and again start walking faster or slower, change into a jog or a run or go back to your normal walking speed. Make it really interesting for your dog. You can also stop at random points and ask them to do some commands which will also help you progress in your training. Just make your walk new and fun!