Congratulations on your new family member! I’m sure she is a ball of energy with little razor teeth that could puncture the thickest material. Or at least that is the description of my little guy. Here are five age appropriate puppy games you can play to help exhausted your puppy’s brain.
It is important to make sure you are playing puppy games that are safe and educational. Until a puppy is at least 18 months old their growth plates are still closing. Any additional stress on the joints could cause problems that will affect them for the rest of their lives. What puppy games can you play?
Face Game
The Face Game is the beginning of teaching “Look.” Pull out your treats, let your puppy see them, sit down on the floor and wait. As soon as your puppy looks at you mark the action. A clicker with this game is much more useful so they don’t associate your voice with looking at you.
In the beginning make this super easy for your puppy so that they have success and you aren’t frustrated. In the beginning that might be that they move their eyes in your direction and don’t even turn to look at you.
Over time make the reward harder to get, you want to get to the point where they wait to break eye contact until you release/reward them. Once they’ve mastered the game vary how long you make them hold their “look” to get the reward.
Then take it to different places, a park, a friend’s house, or even their training class. It’ll be hard to start but they’ll master it in no time.
Name Game
This seems like a no brainer but your puppy doesn’t know their name. And in fact, they might think their name is “NO” or whatever frequently comes out of your mouth. You want your puppy to associate his name with good things happening. In order to make that happen you need to train her to understand her name.
You can do this using a marker word or clicker. Start by using kissing noises or some other noise that gets them to turn their head to you. As soon as they move click or mark the action and then treat. Repeat this until they respond consistently.
Then add their name. Wait two to three seconds if they don’t respond right away then add the kissing noise or other sound. Mark the action as soon as they start to look at you and then treat. Repeat this until they respond consistently.
This is an important game to take outside of the house. Try it in a busy park, at the shopping mall, on a walk. The goal is to get them to consistently respond to you.
Ask to Get Down
There are times when your puppy will need to be physically restrained when he gets older. Regardless of size. The veterinarian’s office is one example. When you start working on restraint with them as puppies it is much easier as adults to maneuver your dog. As a puppy everyone wants to hold them and cuddle them and after awhile they want away. Your puppy wiggling around in your arms is their way of saying let me down. However, you don’t want them jumping or falling out of your arms or in Mr Magoo’s case trying to climb over my shoulder and launch off my back.
Start by sitting down and holding your puppy. Slowly lower her to the floor. If she wiggles at all pick her back up. Eventually move to standing up and taking longer to put him on the ground. If he wiggles at all he gets picked back up and the process started over again.
If your puppy is too big to hold this game will need to be modified for you. I would suggest hugs or other gentle restraints instead of lifting your puppy up.
Playing with Toys
The one thing I regret about Millie’s puppyhood is that I didn’t teach her to play with toys. My first girl, Molson, never needed to be taught so I didn’t realize dogs don’t instinctively know how to play. You will want a few different types of toys so they get used to texture and size in addition to the concept of play.
Start by moving the toy around in the periphery of your puppy’s vision. You will want to use a soft toy, possibly fleece or other similar material. If your puppy isn’t showing any interest in the toy, mix up how you are playing with it. The only thing you don’t want to do is shove it in your puppy’s face.
Once your puppy comes over and puts it in their mouth, add a slight amount of pressure. You don’t want to pull it away from him but you want him to see that there is more to the toy. After a few of these let your puppy win!
You can keep one special toy that they really like and only use it for the games. For Miss Millie it is her bumper/dummy. She never gets it unless we are playing together. With Mr Magoo I’m still trying to decide what toy that will be.
Toy Tag
This one is great once you have developed a desire for toys. You keep three or four toys close to you. Engage your puppy with one toy. Start tugging gently and then after a bit switch out the toy. You will try to get her interested in playing with the new toy.
This may take awhile for them to catch on to the game. In that case make the second toy their favorite toy. The first toy was fun to play with but the second toy is the best toy to play with.
When you are confident your dog gets the game, you can up the challenge by putting another toy after their favorite toy. The goal is to get them so interested in playing with you that the toy doesn’t matter.
You can check out all of our articles in the puppy series here. Follow us on social media to see what we are up to.
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