Learn ways to keep your dog entertained and enriched indoors all year round! While it’s important to get outside, get fresh air, and go for walks at all times of the year, there may be some days which are not optimal for outdoor activities such as during lightning storms, wind storms, fires that affect air quality, or bitterly cold wintry days. Living in Phoenix, for most of the summer the days are scaldingly hot. Doing much outside activity besides swimming becomes limited. And when living in California during wildfire season, getting fresh outdoor activity was sparse and not recommended. However, there are many ways to entertain your dog and provide mental enrichment with indoor activities and games whether because of inclement weather or because you live in an apartment!

Here are 5 indoor activities and games to do with your dog:

#1. Treat Dispensing Puzzle Toys

Our favorite activity option is treat dispensing toys. There are a variety of ones with flaps, blocks, movable parts, and ones that roll.

We have a lot of toys and mix them up. These keep your dog’s mind sharp, engaged, and entertained while tiring them out. Some movable food dispensing options are the Buster Cube, The Odin, and the Kong Wobbler. Kyjen also makes a lot of puzzle toys which have flaps your dog has to push up with their nose, chambers which have to be pushed aside to reveal a treat, and blocks that have to be pulled out to reveal the hidden food.

Nina Ottosson’s toys are incredible too and have a variety of puzzles which range from beginner to advanced. One of the puzzles we have is the Dog Twister. It’s definitely a more advanced option which we added later on after trying other puzzles first. A great beginner puzzle option is the Dog Smart Interactive Treat Puzzle. A simple homemade DIY super low cost puzzle toy option is using a baking muffin tin, hiding food in the pockets, and covering them with balls. Then watch your pup figure out how to get to the food.

#2. Indoor Agility

Outdoor Agility, Indoor Agility! You can do the same things in both places! The great thing about indoor agility is you can make a fun course out of anything in the house-two stacked boxes with a broom stick handle in the middle for a jump, a couch to jump on as a table, and more. You’re only limited by your imagination. Or you can set up a real agility course with jumps, tunnels, and weaves if you have space and the equipment.

#3 Indoor Workout Games

For Indoor workouts you can use FitPaws equipment or a treadmill! FitPaws Pods, balance discs & boards work great for teaching your dog front and rear end awareness as well as body confidence. Upturned buckets, cardboard, or an upside down dog bowl work well too for varied texture, socialization, and for paw targeting. A doggie treadmill and puppy massages are great for conditioning and easy indoor activity options. There are also agility facilities which are enclosed where you can learn in a class setting or rent the facility to use on your own.

#4. Tricks

Regardless of the weather outside, you can grab some treats and your pup and learn some tricks together. Tricks are a wonderful way to learn to communicate with your dog and a fun bonding activity as well as a mental workout for your dog. Teach shake, sit, down, crawl, leg weave, holding items, jumping through a hoop, pushing a shopping cart, riding a skateboard-the list is endless. As above, you are only limited by your imagination, ability to effectively and clearly communicate, and how you understand your dog when learning tricks. Watch these videos for tons of ideas of tricks to teach your dog! For tutorials on how to teach tricks step by step, check out Zak George’s YouTube Channel.

#5. Fetch

While there’s more room to run outside, if your dog enjoys playing fetch, you can still play inside. Just keep the ball low to the ground when you throw it or do short throws as the ball can bounce erratically! A toy that you can use as well is the iFetch ball machine which comes in different sizes for small and large balls depending on your dog’s size.

#6. Pup Pod Enrichment Game

A fun interactive toy option is the Pup Pod! Pup Pod is a mental enrichment game where the dog will touch the Pup Pod, earning a click and treat dispensed from the food holder! Once learned, it’s a hands off game for you so you can be cooking, cleaning, or working on the computer while your pup plays this game. There are a variety of options of different games ranging from easy to hard. In addition you can try out different sounds to desensitize your pup to the sound of a doorbell or a cat meowing. Order one here!

#7. Hide and Seek

You can also play hide-and-seek teach your dog to find you. Start with them in a sit-stay and then go hide. If your pup doesn’t know a sit-stay, this is a great opportunity to brush up on teaching this behavior! Then when you’ve hidden, tell your dog to “Find!” and wait until they seek you out. Give them lots of praise and food. Start with super short distances then make it harder as your pup starts to understand the game. We do this quite often on walks and around the house and my pups love this game.

#8. Scentwork

A fun indoor game is learning scentwork with your dog. One version is to take your dog’s food and hide it around your room or the house. Then release your dog to find the hidden treasure. To start with, make the hiding spots super easy to find as your dog is learning and to encourage them to participate. They have to learn and be taught how to play this! As they get more experience, you can make the hiding spots harder such as under a blanket, up on a cupboard, etc. This activity can also be done as a scatterfeed activity by throwing the food on the ground in a dog safe area in the house for them to scavenge for and find!

While you can use a variety of treats for the aforementioned activities, the easiest thing that we do is to use your dog’s normal kibble. As your dog learns to love learning and playing they will do so for even dry food. It is good to mix it up though and change the treats/food occasionally to keep your dog engaged while providing them variety.