5 Tips to Minimize Your Dog's Boredom | Pupford

In this video I'm going to give you five ways to minimize your dog's boredom, and we're going to do this in less than five minutes. They're going to be actionable things you can start doing every single day that are going to reduce your dog's boredom.

But before we get into the five ways to minimize your dog's boredom, the most important thing you can do is physical exercise. Your dog needs physical exercise every single day. If you want them to be tired and to not be as bored, they need physical exercise. Now let's get into it!

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5 TIPS TO MINIMIZE YOUR DOG'S BOREDOM

1. GIVE ENRICHMENT EVERY MEAL

The first tip and probably the most important and the easiest one that you can do is giving enrichment as part of every single meal that you feed your dog. My dogs are here waiting in their place, like very, very good girls. I'm just going to show you what I do for their meals every single day to give them a little bit of enrichment, to help reduce boredom. It doesn't matter if you're feeding kibble, raw, dehydrated food, whatever it is, you can find a way to use enrichment.

So it's this simple, get their food, I've got a Kong here. I'm going to fill the Kong with some of the food. See? Simple. And it gives your dog enrichment as part of every single meal. There it is, filled Kong, ready for enrichment. They're ready for it too. Another reason I like putting a Kong or something like that in their meal is because it slows them down and they have to eat around it. Sorry to bother you, Sunny. They have to eat around it, gives them a little bit of enrichment just for that, and then you'll see, she'll pull her Kong out in a minute and have to eat her Kong. So you can see, her meal is done. We're pretty much done. Scout is going to polish it off. And here she is, using the Kong, getting a little bit of enrichment as part of her meal. This didn't take me any extra time other than filling the Kong with her food. So, so easy.

2. HAVE TOYS ACCESSIBLE

The second way you can keep your dog from getting bored, like Sunny might be right now, is having toys accessible for them because then they can grab them whenever they want and do a little bit of self regulating and keeping themselves entertained by having access to their own toys.

3. WORK ON TRICK TRAINING

Another very simple thing to do that I really think makes a big difference for dogs not being bored is to work on trick training. So let me just show you a couple fun, little tricks that I do with my dogs. But really, it's whatever is fun for you, and it's just to get your dog moving, get them to use their brain, and you get some physical exercise at the same time. Oh, good girl. Can you shake? Oh, good shake.

Check out these trick training courses to teach your dog 40 fun tricks!

4. TAKE BREAKS DURING YOUR DAY AND PLAY WITH YOUR DOG

Another simple thing you can do to reduce your dog's boredom is to just take little breaks throughout the day or while you're watching TV or reading a book or whatever it is, and play fun little games with them. I love to play hide and seek with treats. I'll show you how I do that right now. So I'll either get my dogs to go into their place. You can just get them to do a stay, you can put them in a different room, whatever works best, grab some treats, and I'm just going to sprinkle them in places not too hard, but sometimes I like to put them behind the garbage can or put them somewhere that it might be a little difficult for them to get. You can make it as tough as you want. Just scatter them in different places. Okay, go. And then they just have to sniff them out and go find them.

5. ENRICHMENT

All right, tip number five for keeping your dog from getting bored is enrichment outside of normal mealtime, just as an extra thing to do for your dog.

So I've got my dogs here in place, which if you haven't learned that, definitely go check out the video that I'll put a link here for.

Very important. All right, so I've got some of the salmon jerky that is Scout's favorite. I'm putting that in there, along with some of the Pupford for training treats, I've got salmon and chicken. You really don't need a ton either. The key is to just get as many down here as you can. And I like to fold it up nicely for them. Okay, go.

Check out snuffle mats here.

And you can learn all about the benefits of snuffle mats here.

I hope you found these five ways insightful. Just to recap, give enrichment with every meal, have toys readily accessible for your dog, make up fun games and play with them, find short breaks throughout your day to play with your dog, and give enrichment outside of your normal mealtime. So try these out, let me know which ones you like the best, and if you have other ideas, be sure to leave a comment and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for watching.