Kaboutjie SA Mommy Blogs by Lynne Huysamen
Having a dog is a lot of work and a lot of fun. Playing with your dog is one of the best ways to encourage physical activity as well as bonding with your dog. However, you don’t have to spend your time playing endless hours of fetch. There are plenty of games to play with your dog that will interest everyone involved.
- Hide and Seek
Just like children, dogs love to play hide and seek. It helps them with their thinking skills as well as the development of their senses. Playing with your dogs will also help you with dog training costs as your dog will bond better with people. Before you play this game, it is important to develop their ability to stay upon command. Until they sit and stay, you will need someone in the room with your dog to remind them to stay in the same place when called.
To start off the game, place your dog in a room and tell them to stay. Then, head off into the rest of your home and find a hiding spot. At first, you may want to stick to easier places and get harder as time goes on. After you are in your spot, call for your dog. Once he finds you, give him plenty of praise and a reward. Your dog will be sure to love this game!
- Doggie Basketball
All you need for this game is a ball and a laundry basket. Start off by showing your dog what you want him to do. Drop the ball into the laundry basket and say “drop.” Do it a few times and then give your dog a chance. You want him to drop the ball into the laundry basket each time you use the command “drop.” Make sure to give him a great reward each time! This may take a few times, but he will learn the command drop. After he is great at this, place the laundry basket in different locations.
- Homemade Obstacle Course
Dogs love plenty of praise and attention. They get all of those and more while going through a homemade obstacle course. Use blankets or dog proof trash cans as the obstacles so they don’t accidentally get injured. To start off, create the course. You need some good space for this game. Roll the blankets up and lay them on the ground at varying locations.
Once your obstacle course is created, lead your dog through it. Encourage him to zigzag around some of thetowels. Try to see if your dog will jump over one or two of them. Take them through the course a few times. After you think your dog has mastered the course, stand at the end and call them! The goal is for your dog to tackle the course all by himself.
- Red Light, Green Light
If you have children, this is a great game for the entire family. In order to play, your dog has to understand the basic commands of stay and come. Take your family outside and spread out in the yard. Designate one person to be the commander. Replace the words “red light” and “green light” with “stay” and “come.” The commander calls out the commands to both humans and dogs. Reward your dog!
- Tug of War
This seems basic, but dogs absolutely love the chance to be able to let out some aggression in safe ways. Plus, you get to work on teaching your dog how to let go of a toy on command. Make sure to remember to reward your dog for listening to your commands. You can also teach your dog how to pick up a toy on command. All of these are great; dogs love to please their humans. Let your dog have fun and pull the rope with you, while learning some new commands.
Lovely article. We love playing hide and seek with our German Shepherd. It was interesting to see how she would initially run up and down searching for us frantically and then how she discovered that sniffing us out works better! She found us much quicker when she sniffed out trails.
Another game she loves is finding the treat: we’d take a muffin pan and put 12 tennis balls over each mold. Then we would hide one treat under one of the tennis balls which she would sniff out. A similar game is with 3 cups with a treat under; then moving the cups around and she “chooses” under which cup the treat is. Playing games with our dogs (and cats) are so rewarding for both parties. 🙂
I remember how I and one of our dogs used to play. She was good at sniffing out her ball and each day at the same time she wanted to play. I makes for good memories. I enjoy the company of my dog. She will be with me wherever I am.
This is one of my favourite topics.
My fur babies are part of my family and every moment spent with them is never a second wasted.
I have 3 different breeds of dogs and each with their own character.
My female who is the oldest is a Pekingese, she is 7 and is physically the smallest of my dogs. Her name is Bella and she is the most stubborn dog in the world, she does not listen to anybody, she is a little stubborn princess and does not play. She is a lap dog and enjoys her long tummy rubs and kisses galore.
Then is the second oldest, she is a female Boer Bull. Her name is Becca, she turned 5 years last month. She is very obedient, enjoys playing ball, she is a very humble and friendly dog.
The third is the only male and he is a Pitbull. His name is Boov, he turned 2 in January. He is very inquisitive, a complete destruction case, anything in his sight will be chewed, he is overall an extremely hyper dog. He has chewed number plates, car rims, beadings of the car, drain covers, pvc pipes and the list goes on. Since he loves chewing we constantly buy him Ostrich bones, however the minute it is finished the demolishing starts. LOL
There is never a dull moment with fur babies around. 😊