Episode #220 Stop Your Dog's Boredom FAST!

Is your dog bored, restless, or getting into trouble? 😬 A bored dog is a mischievous dog, but don’t worry—I’ve got the BEST boredom-busting tips to keep your pup happy and entertained! 🎉

In this episode, I’ll teach you:
✅ 3 fun & easy games to play with your dog:
1️⃣ Find Your Food/Toy – Engage their nose for a fun sniffing challenge! 👃🍖
2️⃣ Hide and Seek – A great way to build recall and confidence! 🏃‍♂️🐾
3️⃣ Round Robin Recall – Strengthen recall while having a blast! 🎾

✅ Brain-boosting puzzle toys that keep dogs entertained when you’re busy:
🐾 Outward Hound Puzzles – Keep their brain working with interactive games!
🐾 Kong Wobbler - Simple to fill, easy to use!
🐾 The Puppod - An Electronic Food Puzzle Toy

✅ The BEST chews for stress relief & entertainment (because chewing is exercise too!):
🦴 Farm Hounds Beef Rolls – Long-lasting & digestible!
🦴 Freezbone Products – Fill and freeze for long-lasting enjoyment!
🦴 West Paw Toppls – Fill them with treats for long-lasting fun!
🦴 Woof Pupsicles & Refills - Perfect for teething pups or hot summer days!

For links to my dog's favorites, visit our Product page. https://www.baxterandbella.com/puppy-products

✅ How to teach your dog to entertain themselves! 🏡
Using crates, pens, and the right toys, you can train your pup to choose their own fun instead of chewing up your furniture! 🛋️🚫

🔥 Say goodbye to boredom & hello to a happy, tired pup! 🔥
🐶 What’s your dog’s favorite boredom buster? Drop a comment below! ⬇️
💙 If you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE for more dog-friendly tips and fun training hacks! 🐾✨

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Dog Boredom
• 1:01 Three Fun Engaging Games
• 4:14 Food Puzzle Toys for Mental Exercise
• 5:33 Chewing as Exercise and Entertainment
• 8:11 Teaching Self-Entertainment and Episode Wrap-up

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Today I'm teaching you how to stop your dog's boredom fast. When your dog gets bored, do they get a little mischievous? Maybe you're finding toilet paper all around the house. Today, we're going to teach you how to stop that. Welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast. I'm Amy Jensen, founder of Baxter and Bella, the online puppy school. Here we are all about helping you create the best possible experience raising a puppy, from training tips to practical tricks, all aimed at fostering a happy, well-behaved dog who truly feels like part of the family. So if you are ready to enjoy the journey and strengthen the bond with your dog, let's get started. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to the Puppy Training Podcast. Today. I have a clip from my recent YouTube video for you, so you will hear me describing games, and if you want to see how those games are played, or you want to see the food puzzle toys that I'm talking about, head on over to YouTube at Baxter and Bella for more details. All right, enjoy.

Speaker 1: 1:01

To curb your dog's boredom, they're going to need both mental and physical exercise on a daily basis. Today, I'm going to teach you and your dog how to play three fun games. I'm going to also talk about my favorite food puzzle toys for your dogs and show you some chews that my dogs absolutely adore. These things keep them happy, safe and entertained so that they're not getting into your toilet paper. Game number one is find your food. You can use treats, you can use their kibble or you can use a favorite toy. These little squeaky toys work great. So I'm going to use these treats from Pawtree. They are lamb, salmon and potato meaty bites. My dogs love them. Here's how you play. Let your dog sniff the food or the toy you're going to be using. So I've put a few treats in this bowl. I'm going to hide it in this corner. I like to do this in a couple different locations, so we'll put another one right there. And for the last spot, I'm going to be a little tricky. I'm going to put it up on the sofa. I don't mind if they jump up here. Once you have all your treats hidden, then you release your dog and say, okay, go find your food, and then let them find it. Now I start simply putting them all in this one room area to begin with, as your dogs get better at this game and they understand what's happening, you can make this as hard as you want. I even take this outside in my yard. I hide their toys instead of their food. You can mix it up in a lot of different ways. Your dogs are going to love this one. This game is great for burning energy without running around like a maniac. They have a focus, they have a goal and they're trying to find it. Perfect for rainy days, perfect for any other day that your dog just has a little extra energy.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Next up a classic Hide and go seek. Only this time you're the one hiding. Here's how to play. Step one have your dog do a sit, stay If they don't know how, have a friend hold them, take a little food reward with you or a toy that you can reward them with once they find you. And then step three is to hide. Make this easy. Hide behind the sofa, hide behind a chair, somewhere in the same room that your dog is currently. We can make it harder as they get better at this game. And fourth, have your friend release the dog and then they get to find you Again. That search is all the fun for your dog. So let them look and last, when they get to you, throw a big party. Good dog, give them the food reward, toss the toy for them, play a little game of tug, whatever they love. We want them to be rewarded for finding you. You can also make this hide and seek game a recall game. So when you release your dog, to find you, call them to come to you. They can hear your voice, let them sniff you out and it makes a really good recall practice.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Round Robin Recall is another excellent recall game. This gives your dog lots of physical exercise plus some mental exercise in the meantime. Here's how you play. Have people stand in a circle. This game is great for multiple people. So if you have guests coming over, have them stand in a circle. This game is great for multiple people. So if you have guests coming over, have them stand in a circle. Everybody gets two to three food rewards and then we take turns calling the dog back and forth across the circle. When the dog gets to me, I expect a nice sit to say please. If they don't know how, I just help them by luring them into a sit. And then I feed them a food reward and the next person goes and they call the dog to them across the circle and then we repeat that pattern of run sit to say please run to the person sit to say please run to the person sit to say please. It's great physical exercise Again, great mental exercise as well. And that recall training is in there too. My dogs love round robin recall why. It gives them attention and snacks, win-win. And over time you can increase the difficulty of this game simply by increasing the size of your circle.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Maybe you're busy and you don't have time to play games with your dog and you need them to entertain themselves. No problem, that's where food puzzle toys come in. Let me show you. First up is this outward hound puzzle. It's really simple to use. You take this top off I put my dog's kibble in here you replace the lid and then you set this on the floor and let them try to knock out the food. So as they wobble this around, you can see that food's going to move around and come out. And then they get to find this on the floor. Another fun alternative that's electronic is called the pup pod. You put the food in the top of it and we just simply cover it, and then our dog gets to hit this little pod around and that pod is what signals the food to come out of there. Having your dog work for their food rather than just feeding them in a bowl, is going to work them out mentally. It's great mental exercise for them, and both physical and mental exercise are important on a daily basis. So use food puzzle toys, because it takes way longer for your dog to finish their meal than just gobbling it out of a bowl. Did you know chewing is actually a workout for your dog? It alleviates stress, it strengthens jaw muscles and it keeps your dog entertained.

Speaker 1: 5:39

My dogs have a few favorites that I'm sharing with you today. So first, farmhounds is a family-owned company. They do natural beef hide rolls and these last a long time for my dogs. This is a 10-inch beef roll. My dogs love this. This is kind of their go-to item when they're bored that. They'll go to their pen, pick this out and then bring it over to the carpeted area to chew it. It's great because they leave my table legs alone and my sofa and chairs alone. They go for this instead. Next, my dogs love chews that I can stuff. So this is a Westpaw topple. This is a freeze bone bowl and I can fill this with kibble, some Greek yogurt, maybe applesauce, a little pumpkin puree, stir it all around and then stick this in the freezer for a few minutes and then feed it to my dog. It's great entertainment for about 20 minutes.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Another favorite of my dogs is the Woof Pupsicle. So they come in different colors. They're pretty simple. You just open them up, put the little Pupsicle inside. It screws shut and then you can buy the refills or you can make them and you just again put it inside, hand it to your dog and it takes them a while to work that out of the middle. This toy is called a snoop. You open it up like this, pull out that middle. You can fill it with biscuits, kibble, whatever your dog loves. Then you close it, put this on the ground and they move this around and get things to fall out of it.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Make sure you always monitor your dog when giving them something new to chew. We want to figure out what kind of chewer are they. Are they a heavy chewer? Are they a light chewer? How long does it take them to work through something and are they going to be able to break this toy apart or not? There's different kinds of rubber out there. There's stronger rubber and less strong rubber. Make sure you do your homework when you're shopping and get appropriate chews for your dog and their style of chewing. Providing your dog with good chews from the get-go teaches them what to chew.

Speaker 1: 7:20

You can prevent a lot of unwanted chewing around your home by giving them something good to do. You might be wondering how do I get my dog to chew these and not my furniture? It's pretty simple. When we start with a new dog in our home, they're in a crate or an exercise pen. When we can't watch them, that's where you're giving them these delicious chews and good things to work on. So then, as they grow older and we give them more free reign around our house, they're gravitating towards those toys to chew on.

Speaker 1: 7:45

Little Bella will go into her pen, grab her farmhound beef roll, take it out to the living room and that's what she works on. Why? Because she spent a lot of time when she was younger in a one room area with appropriate shoes or in her exercise pen with appropriate shoes. She was raised on appropriate shoes and so she chooses those things. She likes them and she's learned to love them. She finds them, she seeks them out and she leaves the rest of my house alone.

Speaker 1: 8:11

Truly, one of the best things you can teach your dog how to do is to entertain themselves. So there you have it Fast and easy ways to stop your dog's boredom. Your dog will be happier, more calm and less destructive Win-win. Thanks for tuning in to the Puppy Training Podcast. I hope today's tips help you feel more confident and excited about raising your dog. Remember, with a little patience and consistency you can create a loving bond and a well-behaved pup who's a joy to have in your family. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow puppy parents. For more resources, visit Baxter and Bella online. Until next time, happy training.