Mental enrichment suggestions

[LN25]

We have a 15 month cockapoo who gets two good off lead walks a day. He’s generally pretty well behaved, however I think we need to do more mental enrichment activities as quite often he gets bored by mid afternoon if I’m working at home and starts pestering me to go out before I’m able to finish work.

I’ve tried snuffle mats and a puzzle toy but he seems occupied for about 1 minute! Does anyone have any really good suggestions for toys etc that will use his brain and tire him out? I’m also struggling to know where to start with scent work - how do you teach them this?

I often get lambasted for this, but I'll say it anyway; snuffle mats and puzzle toys can be a nightmare if overused, not used properly (not saying either of this is the case with you) or if used on the wrong dog.

We often get dogs into the rescue I help with, and they are so often described as 'manic' or 'unable to settle' and what they all have in common is their owners use food-games (kong's, puzzle matts, snuffle mats etc). Once we get them into foster and remove these games...it's like having a different dog. Sadly, IME, these games do not work for an awful lot of dogs.

I'd cut out any of those types of games, if you're doing them.

What I cannot recommend enough, is training. Start by giving your food slightly less food with his meals (to avoid over-feeding) and instead use those calories in another form (chicken, beef etc) for training. With mine, when I WHFH, I do a quick 10/15 minute training session at lunch and one again about 16:00 ish. Training done properly is exhausting for dogs. If your dog can already do most basic commands, start trying to train harder ones - extended settles, stopping when running towards you (emergency stop), back-up (moving backwards), extended stay or down, and then doing all of these at a distance. So perhaps you standing in your kitchen, getting your dog to sit, and then going out the room (peep around the corner if you can) and seeing how long he will sit for and then return before he moves.

Part of it is his age though, at 15 months he's got another 12 months nearly before he's an adult. They get bored quickly at this age so you have to tire them out in the right way and get them used to settling without toys or stimulation - or you end up with a wired manic who never learns to settle.

I hope that's helpful! 😊

One of the Spaniel owners will be along in a moment (I hope) and can talk to you about scent work if you're interested in it!

I agree, ditch the enrichment stuff and teach your dog to settle properly.

If your dog is clever and you feel he needs more stimulation, try and teach him some tricks or go to formal fog training class once a week - kc good citizen, hoopers, obedience, doggy dancing... these are all better for the 2 of you than the snuffle matt pacifier.

Yup, a third vote for ditching the food games and teaching him to settle properly.
Training, classes, play, more walks all outside, but indoors they should be able to settle without needing constant stimulus.

Sorry if this is annoying to say the same as everyone else, but I also say you need to teach him to settle.

I have a working cocker who is 17 months so around the same age as yours, and he gets a decent off lead walk every other day which includes a bit of gundog training (he has luxating patella so I have to manage his exercise levels) and very short on-lead walks outside of that.

He is chill as anything in the house, but it’s all because I taught him to settle when he was very small. It is genuinely the most valuable thing I did looking back!

I WFH and our usual routine is a short toilet walk in the morning, his off lead walk which is about 40 mins (if it’s the right day) at lunch time, then another short walk once I’ve finished work. He pretty much snoozes the whole day and occasionally will play with a toy or spend some time with a chew. If it’s his ‘off’ day I’ll usually do a bit of training in the house such as retrieving or practicing recall and sit.

I am sure there will be some good YouTube vids on how to teach settle if you search 😃

We have a working cocker spaniel puppy who is 7 months old and physically we can't tire him out, he needs lots of mental stimulation. A walk just isn't enough. We do a lot of gundog type training which is inbred in him so he's picked it up quickly, and play a lot of "get out, find it" on his walks, and we do it with gundog dummies but also treats. I caveat this by saying I am in no way a dog trainer, but we drop his treats as we are walking along while he's not looking, then a few metres later get his attention and give him the command, he found a 1cm sized treat, 10m away in a pile of leaves last week. We have been doing this for months so you'd need start with dropping it near you, sometimes he doesn't find it and we drop another so he gets a reward. You could try some YouTube videos, Mordor Gundogs is one we've watched and the trainer is pretty funny.

I take him to trick training workshops every 6 weeks or so. We learn a couple of tricks and then we practice them in short bursts at home which are pretty mentally tiring, I'm also considering Mantrailing which I think he'd be pretty good at.

If you google dog trick training locally it will come up, or you could have a look a youtube in the short term

He's an absolute menace without mental stimulation, a pretty endearing, adorable one, but a menace all the same 🤣

Yep. Food toy games are not enrichment.They are to keep the dog occupied. Training training training is the only thing that will truly enrich that breed

For some work, you can start with searching for treats in the house. Gradually put them in harder and harder spots and further distance from where you start. If you have a kong, you can teach him to. Indicate on the kong scent by just holding it and getting him to nose boop it. Have to start with any interaction with the kong and rewarding that and then moving on to the nose booping, and then eventually moving on to a sit or a down or a freeze.But that's a long term goal, and you'll probably need a trainers help with that. Then, you can quite quickly even once you've taught the nose boop to put it on the floor and get into indicate on it.And then start gradually moving it further and further away.And then hiding it. If you look on youtube, i'm sure there's videos but I think long term if you want to get it right.I would recommend a trainer. It's hard to explain here.

I do agree that you need to teach a dog to settle.

However if your dog had an early morning walk and begins to get restless before their later walk I dont think it unreasonable that they need some attention.

A 15 month old spaniel will need to be doing a bit more than just 2 walks a day.

Look at the quality of his walks as well. Just bumbling around going self employed will be less satisfying than scent games, hunting games etc.

I would map in a 10 min session in the afternoon before he gets restless set up some retrieves scent searches etc. Then back in to to settle untill later walk.

Get rid of the dog?

Congrats.

Thanks all - really helpful suggestions. I’ll try some more training sessions and also look at you tube to look at scent work and retrieval. I think he’s actually ok at settling in the house - he will basically just go to sleep once back from morning walk.