Entertainment for a dog on "bedrest" for 10 days - well, cage rest of course!!

[loveyouradvice]

Hi

Because of back issues, our 5 year old dog is on 10 days cage rest - just allowed to potter round to eat and drink in old puppy playpen...... and we carry outside to wee and poo.

4 days in, understandably quite bored and more active!

Any tips for entertainment? So far I've only thought of soothing food type things - a new bone, frozen food/yogourt mini kongs.

Extra tough for him as he's extremely sociable - anytime someone new comes into the room, lots of tail wagging and a longing to say hello. Just being in the room doing stuff - like cooking, or working at the table, seems to help a bit

But another 6 days of this - HELP!!!!!

Can you teach him new tricks, like taking a treat off his paw, learning left and right paw?

There are dog toys you can buy which dispense treats if they slide or press something

Have a look at the Canine Enrichment FB group.

Enrichment ideas specifically for dogs with injuries or post surgery are requested and shared quite often.

We have had to rest our dog for 2 weeks after severely injuring his back.

Technically it was cage rest but what we did was clear out a room of things for him to jump on and we put a mattress on the floor. I sat with our dog for the majority of the time in the day and at night on the mattress and found that the less I did the less he wanted to do. Simply put, I kept the environment as calm and unstimulating as I could which helped. It sounds counter intuitive but actually the more boring the environment the more he would simply sleep, even being a working cocker who was used to running about all the time.

Great advice - thank you!

Yes Bitey that doesn't surprise me at all and really glad that it lasted most of the two weeks for you, this give me real hope - lying beside him as i read a book seems to comfort and sooth him. He's quite happy doing this for a long while... until he's not!

And Canine Enrichment looks fab - I've just bought a lickimat having seen it featured there.

Definitely looking for things to sooth him rather than those that encourage him to move a lot ... or even a bit, since it's his back that needs to rest

He's quite happy doing this for a long while... until he's not!

Yes I used to get the nose bumps, stares, sad face etc a lot. Even worse was the indignation of being on a lead to toilet so he couldn't chase the birds outside

Teach him to read?

Poor fella. It’s so hard when you can’t explain why or that it’s only temporary & not the new normal! He might find it easier when there’s no one home.