pets care
5 ways to keep your dog stimulated
Five Ways to Stimulate Your Dog’s MindWe love our dogs; for many of us, they are our best friends, our confidants, our children. Their playfulness, loyalty, and compassion reflect the very best of what we seek in each other, and when they’re happy, we’re happy. However, our furry friends are more like us than it would seem. Dogs grow bored, become anxious, restless when not engaged, overtly emotional, and eager to amuse themselves when otherwise not challenged—much to the chagrin of our furniture and other pets. As responsible pet parents, we must stimulate our pets mentally and physically; offering exercise to keep them healthy and fit, mental obstacles and puzzles to sharpen and focus their cognition, and dog training to correct any negative behavior. If we truly love our pets, it is essential to take the necessary steps to ensure they are happy and living fulfilled lives.
According to the ASPCA , an adult dog needs about 30 minutes of aerobic exercise twice a day. Regular walks, jogging, swimming, hunting, and play sessions can help add meaningful years to your dog’s life. Structured play, such as tug-of-war and fetch, can also control your dog’s impulse control. Taking your dog on walks to busy areas, such as a busy parking lot or a popular park, gives your dog a cornucopia of sights, sounds, and smells to explore. Every day, give your dog fifteen minutes to explore something new. This will mentally exhaust your dog, and will gradually build up his curiosity and recognition skills. This is also a great way to break an anxious dog out of his shell: start with a sparsely populated spot—like your backyard—and slowly build up to the public parking lot.
When you are running quick errands, bring your dog along. The continuous change in environment will excite and intellectually challenge your dog. Your dog will also find it to be fun! Be careful, though; it is never okay to leave a dog in a car in full sunshine or with the windows fully closed—your dog could overheat with a source of moving air.
Your dog may need a job. Consider training your dog to fetch the newspaper, retrieve your shoes, take out small bags of trash, or bring you the remote (buy a rubber side slip for your remote that will allow your dog to bite down on it without damaging the remote or your dog’s teeth or without risking swallowing the remote). You can also make it a daily routine that your dog is to bring you his favorite toy at a certain time, and return it. Doing this builds his logic and coordination skills and it gives him something to look forward to. You can also introduce your dog to your young children and allow them to bond (supervised, of course). Dogs are pack animals, and they see their host family as their packs. By introducing them to the young of the pack, you are charging them to protect and care for them. To you, that may not mean much, but to your dog, that’s a full-time commitment and a chance to be responsible.
Feed your dog twice a day on a regular schedule. Dogs are hunters, and seeking food is very important to their psyche. Having an ever-present bowl of food available to them bores them and makes them lazy. Prepare the dog’s food on a regular schedule, and remove any remaining food after an hour. This will make mealtime exciting for your pet again. Arranging for your dog to play with other dogs is also important towards building social skills and relieving anxiety.
Finally, consider dog training. While behavior modification is important toward integrating an anxious dog into a family, skills training can help engage your dog intellectually and can offer new avenues for your dog to interact socially with your family and with others. Training also instills responsibility into your dog and offers opportunities to think and reason.
For most, their dog is their best friend, and a troublesome dog is heartbreaking. By changing your dog’s routine in small ways, it is possible to exploit your dog’s natural tendencies for the better to make him less anxious, more sociable, and happier. We want our dogs to live long, happy lives; and by engaging them in meaningful, constructive ways, they will.