How does your dog fill it’s time?

[MissShapesMissStakes]

I’m new to dog ownership. We have a miniature poodle, 8 months old.

He’s lovely. He adores my kids and loves to play with them. Or mooch about in the garden with them.

We walk him a couple of times a day, one for at least an hour. One for half an hour to focus on walking on the lead.

Someone is pretty much always home with him. We live with my parents and I work from home and my kids don’t go to school.

But when he’s not got a playmate or isn’t on a walk. He just looks so bored! He might follow me around for a bit while I do some jobs. Or wander about constantly asking to go out/come in while I’m working on the computer in the kitchen.

He can’t be entertained all the time. Sometimes the kids want to play on their iPads, I have work to do etc. He will sleep for a bit of that. But then he just wanders around looking bored and giving me those puppy eyes to give him food or go and play with him.

What do your dogs do if you’re in but not able to entertain a four legged teenage-attidude-d dog? It’s not like he can grab a deck of cards and play solitaire!

[DogInATent]

When she's not sleeping she does cross-stitch. She tried knitting but her leg joints all bend the wrong way at the wrong place and the needles kept slipping from her paws.

She sleeps a lot.

[ApolloandDaphne]

My Labs daily routine:
Snoozle
Breakfast
Walk
Snoozle
Bark at postman
Snoozle
After lunch walk
Annoy me a bit by wanting in and out garden
Snoozle
Dinner
Snoozle
Daddy's home! Tummy rub and ear scratch.
Snoozle

What a life!

[Felicia4]

Sitting by the window or sitting in the garden, being naughty in the garden trying to break into all the fenced off for their own protection areas, plotting what to steal( mainly socks and knickers) and then executing it, sleeping, waking up to find a new spot to sleep in, playing tug of war and fetch, dragging their beds around the house and sleeping, spreading ALL their toys all over the house repeatedly, trying to break into the utility room where their food is kept.................basically being busy up to no good or sleeping

[Steamfan]

I have a greyhound - it's bone idle, and just loves to sleep. It has to be cajoled into going out!

[Yourownpersonaljesus]

Coriander my dog does exactly the same with her yak's milk chew. She doesn't seem to know what to do with it so just carries it around or hides it in different places. It actually seems to stress her out a bit.

[SenecaFalls]

She likes walks and playing with other dogs at the dog park. But mainly she likes to do this:

[doingwhatican]

Our miniature poodle is now 14 months and has calmed down a lot. It took her ages to get into the antlers but now she’ll chew them. Big raw bones are even better. I hate to admit it but once we relented and let her sleep in the sofa she started sleeping more in the day. If we didn’t let her burn off energy off the lead I think she’s be a nightmare.

[heidiwine]

Ours sleeps. Almost all day. He shows little to no excitement when it’s time for a walk. In fact I often have to force him off the sofa to get his lead on. When he’s out he loves it and runs around like a lunatic after anything that moves. When we get back in he consumes an entire bowl of water and goes straight back to one of his four favourite sleeping places (none of which are his bed which is clearly for night time use only). Despite the entire bowl of water he’s consumed he can easily wait 4-5 hours before he needs a pee.
When he was a puppy it was a whole different story.... they grown out of it but really do need to learn to be alone - I wish I’d trained that before I taught him even to sit!

[Girlintheframe]

Ours is a pup too.
He would really like us to entertain him 24/7 and if we can’t entertain him he would like to be near/next/on us
We normally have a walk, do some training, play games like hide and seek and he has things like a snuffle mat. The longest ‘break’ we get is if he has something like a pigs ear which he will happily chew away on. If he isint doing that he plays at being our shadow

[Justagirlwholovesaboy]

Mine has a treat ball which I use when I need so time out, it makes stupid annoying noises but it’s also hard to get the treats out of. He can spend an hour chasing it around the floor trying. Other than that he’s a puppy so wants constant attention, now asleep at my feet a happy and good boy :)

[SomethingWithLemons]

I think you are over walking a significant that age. Try brain exercises to treat him out and lucky/chewy stuff to calm down.

[anniehm]

Mine likes to sleep, if there was a dog Olympics he would win a gold at snoozing! He also likes to watch for foxes and snuggle up when it cold with me but mostly he pushes off to the other room to sleep! He's weird. He runs like the wind and loves really long walks (all day) but the minute you get home, he's in his smelly bed.

[fikel]

I have a toy poodle he is 2 1/2 and has calmed down a lot. He likes to play tug of war with his foxy and raccoon lol !! They’re basically long animals. He is fussy with treats he likes ribbies. He doesn’t necessarily eat one every day but likes it if you pretend you want it and he runs away with it! A snuffle mat are good as you can bury treats. Rotate toys so he doesn’t get bored. Good run off lead every day
He does require a lot of attention and likes to be wherever we are, v loving and v intelligent

[Heyha]

I sympathise! But will settle as gets older. However just a word of warning don't let the dog train you into responding to every bark (especially with food/finding food etc) because then you'll just end up with a dog that has learned to bark when it wants something as well as when it needs something...I have a friend whose dog is lovely but barks SO much, they give her a treat to keep her quiet, she eats it, barks again, repeat a few times then they get fed up and tell her off...

[RandomMess]

Mine sleeps a lot!!! DH works from home and she often sleeps 8am-4pm solid

[GemmeFatale]

I was told five enriching activities a day and they have to be varied.

So usually I do a mix of walks, activities (we like agility, but scent work, flyball, puppy class, whatever you fancy), a food item (frozen stuffed long or similar), grooming session (brushing, ear clean, teeth clean, t-touch, etc), training session (or more likely three or four mini sessions, play session (or again a few mini sessions), (human focused) outing (pub/visiting friends/garden centre/etc). We’re planning a sensory garden for him to explore this year. Obviously we don’t do all of those every day but we probably cover most of them in a week.

[Coriander71]

Otherwise i feel guilty, like i've got a houseguest - or kitchen apprentice - that i have to entertain all the time!

This is exactly how I felt at first Springerfan although mine is 1 now and I think she has been getting slightly better at entertaining herself recently. Our issue with chews is that the minute she gets one, rather than settling down to enjoy it she immediately zooms off to find a hiding place for it, hides it and then comes back wanting to be entertained again. She obviously forgets where she’s hidden them - expensive yak milk chew has been retrieved from under our pillow, behind sofa and is currently at large somewhere in the house! Any ideas why she has started doing this?

[Chocspreadandpb]

Same routine daily. Wakes my daughter up for school when I tell her to, straight to back door to go outside. Eats her food and back to bed until 11ish with or without me. Comes down gets in her window spot on the sofa and watches people/cars/birds. Plays with her toys or runs around the garden like lunatic if she isn't being walked on that day. Spends evening with my daughter when she returns from school. Has a mad half hour with my DH rolling around on the floor together then comes up to bed with me when I go up and sleeps by me until morning.

[Springerfan]

I know, I'm nesh
I can just about cope with pigs ears

[adaline]

What's so weird about it? It's just a body part and it keeps mine amused for hours.

Dogs need to chew, some breeds more than others. Mine has various things - pizzles, dried neck from various animals, pigs ears, stuffed trachea - it's good for them!

[Singlenotsingle]

She sleeps upstairs on our bed. Sometimes she sneaks back to bed. Otherwise she jumps up and down at the gate, guarding the house against passers by, or chases the cats.
Maybe you should get another dog so yours has got someone to play with.

[MissShapesMissStakes]

And pizzle sounds so fun!

[Springerfan]

I wish i'd never read that
It was just dropped into the list so casually!

[MissShapesMissStakes]

Just googled Bulls pizzle

[MissShapesMissStakes]

Brilliant replies thank you!

He does have antlers. But he will only chew them if he can sit on someone’s knee to chew them.

I will look at the recipes for yogurt/king stuff. He does have a few things that I put his kibble in and he has to fling them about or knock them to get the kibble out. But it always seems to end up in a place he can’t reach so then he has to bark to get me to come and get it 🙄

He really is a master of getting attention.

Everyone else’s dogs seem to sleep a lot more. He manages a quick nap in the morning and maybe an hour in the afternoon if he really has to. Otherwise he’s just following me looking depressed.

He is just a puppy still really I suppose.

Maybe we should get a cat to entertain him