Fun games for a cocker spaniel

[GinGeum]

As you all probably now know because I haven't shut up about it we are getting our rescue cocker on Saturday. She's 5.

When she's settled with us more, I intend to take her to proper 'classes' for Gundog training or similar to keep her busy. But just for the first few weeks, I wondered if anyone had any recommendations for activities I can do with her in the garden or in the field.

She will be having long walks too, of course! So just some fun things to do for mental stimulation really. Our current dog has no time for games so this is a bit new to us.

Any ideas?!

Naturally cockers want to hunt. Get some tennis balls and hide them either around the house or when walking and give the dog a command to hunt them out. Make it easy at first so they find it quickly and then harder.

You will learn techniques at gun dog training but I have recently been taught the command 'there there there' when my cocker is close to the object he is hunting otherwise I stay quiet and let him use his nose. So you could try that if the dog finds hunting very easy.

You could also try do other gun dog signals so whilst teaching sit also start associating one pip on a gun dog whistle with sit. Fairly easy to do when dog close by you but you can then build up the distance they are away from you when you give the command.

A retrieve is an obvious one so throw object and get them to pick it up and bring it to you. Practice in a corridor first so they don't run off with the object as a prize :)

There's a couple of FB groups which are brilliant for enrichment ideas: Canine Enrichment and Beyond the Bowl. The ideas on there range from food dispensing toys you can buy to games you can cobble together from stuff you'll already have.

One game that's gone down really well with my dogs is an old bath towel which I scatter some of their dry food on then fold in half lengthways, scatter more food on then roll it up. They have a great time unrolling/unfolding it to get at the food.

If she's fed any dry food even just chucking that around in the garden for her to hunt out rather than giving it to her in a bowl will be great fun and mental stimulation for her.

I nearly always take a little tub of treats out on walks and I'll pick a random spot to scatter them about for the dogs to sniff out. You can start off easy by doing it over a small area on fairly clear ground and make it progressively harder by spreading it further or throwing it into longer grass/undergrowth.

Lovely ideas both, thank you!

Love the towel idea for meal times.

We have some good hiding places in the garden too, for hiding balls. (She is mad about balls!)

The towel idea came from one of those FB groups, I can't remember exactly which one.

I tried a new idea (also from one of those groups!) this morning which went down very well using a Hol-ee Roller and some bits of fabric. I used a cheap fleece blanket cut into roughly 8" squares. Popped a few bits of dry food in the middle of each square, gathered the fabric around it then poked the food-filled bit into the middle of the ball with the rest of the fabric sticking out. They've got to pull each bit of fabric out then open it to get the food

I started off pretty easy but there's lots of scope for changing the difficulty; more bits of fabric with fewer pieces of food in each, "dummy" bits of fabric, double wrapping the food, etc.

Cornflake you must have dogs that don't chew fabric. If I gave food in a towel to my dog he would think I had given him the towel as a side dish