Things to entertain my dog?

[littlewhitebag]

13 mth old lab. She gets two walks each day and has a variety of chew toys - kong/stag bars etc to keep her occupied on the chewing front.

We have made her a sand pit to fulfil her digging urges.

I do training with her for rewards. I also chat to her, stroke her etc etc during the day as i am going about my chores etc.

Besides all this she often comes to me expectantly looking for me, i think, to play. I throw a ball for her but this isn't a game she is really keen on and she gets fed up quickly.

What other games can i play with her? Anyone got any good suggestions?

Hide and seek is a good one. Hide in the house and call her to find you.

I sometimes hold back a handful of needapups kibble, then through it all over the garden, with a 'find it' command.

I am finding though, that the more I do with him, the more he seems to expect me to do iyswim? Although, I am sure it isn't a conscious thing on his part.

As I had got myself in a bit of a tizz about what I 'should' be doing with him, last week I really backed off. He started amusing himself a little more and not stalking my every move, even went into the garden by himself!

This last few days I've done a bit more training with him, in an effort to do some different commands, as I was getting a bit boring but I find he's now gone back to the staring thing again.

So, it's a balance I guess?

Maybe you could ignore her a bit, see what happens, and ignore the guilt the sad eyes give you?

We do food search for our dog - throwing treats in the park, then let her find them herself.

We play fetch and do training (sit, stay, lie down, heel, different not so useful commands)

We have loads of mental exercise toys such as the Buster cube, the Kong Genius Leo and Kong Wobbler. The normal Kong is not as popular here.

On top of that, we try to meet up with the local dogs (and owners) in the park to let the dogs play.

And then we go for long walks in different places - forests, fields, towns and cities.

If she's exercised enough, she'll just sleep most of the day. She's a bit of a velcro-dog, so if I walk too far away from her, she'll follow me, lie down and sleep there until I walk off again. Sometimes it can get a bit too much for me, and then I'll give her a bone or other treat she can spend some time eating.

If sitting in the sofa, she'll either sleep on me or just with her head resting on me.

I am glad to see that i am doing pretty much normal things with her. She is very good at doing the big sad lab eyes and guilting me into playing with her.

I might look at the things Vibbe suggested in the way of mental exercise toys.

We are just back from a walk so she is crashed in a hot, damp heap so i will get peace for a few hours.

Thanks folks.

Another couple of good mental exercise toys are the buster maze or any of the nina ottoman toys. We have the 'brick' one which pup loves but there are other good ones (which she will probably get one of for Christmas)
Tug is pups favourite game. She also loves learning new tricks (currently building up to 'crossing her paws') which seem to tire her out even more than a walk
I know what you mean about the looking expectantly though! I think it's as important that she learns to settle herself without my input, so ignoring is necessary too at times. I don't want her to think I will provide a constant source of fun and games, whenever she wants!