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Imagine coming home from a tiring day and seeing your furbaby waiting for you! To add a cherry on top, you have many games to play with your dog after staying away from him all day.
There are a few time-worthy games that can be played anywhere, both indoors and outdoors. Plus, you won’t need many accessories to play them.
Hence, I researched and assembled a list of 21 games to play with your dog whenever you have some free time. Let’s have a look!
Our top 21 picks for games to play with Dogs
Here are our top 21 picks for games to play with your dog indoors or outdoors when you want to have fun playtime with your dog. Here you go!
1. Muffin Tin Puzzle
With a muffin tin, a bunch of treats, and tennis balls, you must start by dropping treats in the muffin balls and giving the tin to your dog. Let your dog figure out how he can reach the treats and put the treat in only one of the tins after covering all the tins with tennis balls. Your dog will have to solve the problems and improve their sniffing game.
2. Hidden Treasure
To play this game, you will have to collect a few boxes or any type of container and put them upside down. Keep prizes under one of the boxes and ask your puppy to sniff around it. When your dog finds the box with the treat underneath it, applaud your dog and give the dog the hidden treasure.
3. Hide and Seek
To play hide-and-seek success with your dog, teach your dog basic commands like stay, sit, and come. They take your dog to another room, ask him to stay, and then hide in another room. Once you find a good hiding spot, call out your dog’s name and ask the dog to find you.
4. Cardboard Tube Treats
Paper towels and toilet paper rolls made of cardboard can be turned into dog toys! Giving your woof a cardboard tube filled with peanut butter to lick up is one alternative for fun. If you want to keep your dog busy for a long time, you can freeze the tube!
5. Ball Pit-Palooza
You will need an empty kiddie pool and lots of balls properly to stimulate your dog’s brain and nearly! Balls should be used to fill the pool, and then sweets should be added. The balls will move, and the rewards will move when your dog jumps into the pool to grab hold of the treats!
6. Treasure Hunt
Treasure hunt is just like hide and seek, but you must hide treats at different places instead of hiding yourself. Before that, ask your dog to stay while you hide the treats. Once you hide the treats, command your dog with a familiar word similar to ‘Go,’ and there starts the game of Treasure Hunt.
7. Obedience Training
If you and your dog have plenty of time to spend with each other for a day, you simply spend it doing some obedience training together. You can watch some fun dog training videos on YouTube and try them with your dog.
8. Stop and Go
With this game, you can teach your two very helpful commands like come and stay. To play this game, make a space between you two. Instruct your dog to “come,” but before they can approach you, tell them to “stay.” Give your woof a treat if they manage to stop in their tracks. Repeat this procedure a few times to keep playing.
9. Cool Tricks to Teach Your Dog
Dogs are obviously smarter when they learn new skills! This game will be the best way to interact with your dog and teach commands like High-Five, Down, Sit, Stay & Come, or Spin. It will be helpful for your dog to be more obedient.
10. Clean Up, Clean Up
You can literally educate your dog to clean up after themselves by playing this game. Teach your dog to throw their toys into a laundry basket or toy bin. Use commands like “retrieve,” “drop that,” and “put that away” to teach your dog how to play this game.
11. Snuffle Mat
Your dog must use his nose to find treats that are concealed in folds and pockets on snuffle mats. This game is ideal for playing with dogs inside because it is quiet and clean. If you don’t have a snuffle mat, you can simply order from Amazon.com or make your own at home with a door or sink mat.
12. Name Game
This game is a training game. You must teach your dog names for anything, including people, toys, or activities. Hence, your dog will know what you say when calling out that particular name. The easiest will be teaching him the names of his toys.
13. Obstacle Course
A home obstacle course is a great way to test your woof’s agility. Create your course with household items after clearing some space. Your woof might jump over a hula hoop, wriggle under tables, hop over blankets, and weave past stacks of books! Obstacle courses provide excellent mental and physical stimulation even indoors.
14. Staircase Run
Peopwithave stairs in their houses can play this game with more freedom. So, one of the games you can play on the stairs with your dog is racing with your dog up and down the stairs. However, you have to be careful while playing this game. Also, this game is recommended to play mostly with small dogs.
15. Create your own training course
On a thought, you can design your own training course to train your dog with obedience and agility training. Creating your own course will also help you to know which commands your dog understands, along with a few other play tactics.
16. Tug-of-War
The classic game of tug of war is more fun with dogs than with humans. Dogs naturally like to pull things with force, so this is just a bonus for them. You can just grab a rope-like toy or anything that you can use as a rope to play tug of war.
17. Playing Fetch
Playing fetch is another classic that dogs of all breed widely love. Plus, you can burn some extra calories by playing this game with your dog. You can play fetch with a frisbee, ball, or any toy you choose.
18. Playing with Sprinkler
Sprinklers provide entertaining games that you can play with your dog and kids! Playing in the sprinkler is a terrific way to entertain the whole family on a hot day if you have young children and furry family members. Install your sprinkler when the grass is dry, then demonstrate how to jump over the water to your dog.
19. Soccer
Yes, you read that right! You can play soccer with your dog and just as much as with humans. Just take a soccer ball and teach your dog to play with it. Whenever your dog passes the ball to you, cheer for him and give him a treat. Remember to kick the ball softly to see your dog kick it back.
20. Chase Bubbles
This is yet another fun game to try out with your dog, which will be a fun experience for both of you. You will have to create some soap foam and blow bubbles out of it. Now you and your dog both can burst those bubbles and have a fun playtime.
21. Chase The Prey
Now lеt’s talk about Chasе thе Prеy, a fun gamе you can play with your dog to help them usе thеir natural instincts. It is pеrfеct for dogs with lots of еnеrgy, as it lеts thеm chasе and catch a toy or lurе in a safе and controllеd way. To play, all you nееd is a flirt polе. It’s a long polе with a ropе attachеd, and you can tiе a toy or some othеr lurе to thе еnd of it.
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Wrapping Up- Games To Play With Dogs
There is no shortage of games to play with dogs, both indoors and outdoors. So, you can try all of these games with your dog at least once.
This type of activity helps you develop your dog’s mental and physical skills. These games can be easily played with just one or two accessories.
You can also add some of your ideas to this list and have a collection of fun games to play with your dog.
FAQs– Games To Play With Dogs
You should at least play for 15 minutes with your dog every day.
If your dog doesn’t get play time for a long time, it can develop intense mood swings like anxiety, aggression, whining, and listening to your commands.
When dogs feel like being petted and crave their owner’s love, they start licking their humans.
