It can be very challenging to keep your canine family members happy during the ravages of winter. Even those who live in the warmer southern states may face long stretches of forced idleness from winter rains. Without ample enrichment activities, weeks and months of short, dark days can turn even a calm canine into a hyper hound. 

Fortunately, the ever-creative modern dog training world has come up with countless ways to keep our dogs happy in inclement weather, so that dogs and humans can spend more time snuggled together in front of the warm fireplace and less time worrying about frostbite or drowning (see “Winter Warnings,” next page). 

KEEPING ACTIVE IN THE WINTER

One of the best ways to stave off your dog’s winter crazies is to provide her with a wide variety of enrichment activities. Some are easy and can be implemented immediately, while some take a little more investment in time and resources. Let’s start with easy:

Indoor Fetch. If there’s only one of you and your dog will fetch, you can stand at the top of the stairs and toss her ball or toy to the bottom, have her run down to get it, run back up to you. If she will chase it but not bring it back, have a laundry basket full of toys or balls, call her back, and just keep throwing new ones. When you have thrown them all, go down the stairs, collect them, and bring them back up. If you don’t have stairs (or she can’t do stairs) use a long hallway. Get added benefit by putting barriers across the hall for her to jump over as she runs back and forth. 

Jump the Jumps. When I was a wee child, I used to take broomsticks and mop handles and lay them across chairs all around the house, and then run with my Rough Collie, Squire, as he sailed over my makeshift jumps. You can do the same! If you prefer, you can get sections of PVC pipe at a hardware store. Start with the poles on the ground and use a treat to get your dog to walk over them, then trot over them. 

When she is ready for more, use poles to make low X-shaped jumps before you use straight poles to make higher jumps. (Note: Young puppies shouldn’t jump until they are old enough not to be harmed by the repeated impacts. Check with your vet to make sure jumping is a safe activity for your pup.) 

Round Robin Recall. You need at least two humans and a dog who loves to come when she’s called for this game. The larger your house and the more humans (within reason!), the better. 

Put Billy (B) on the third floor, Janey (J) on the second, Mom (M) on the ground floor, and Dad (D) in the basement. (If stairs are not safely carpeted or dog has trouble with stairs, put all humans in different rooms on the same floor.) Each human has yummy treats and a toy that the dog likes for reinforcement when the dog arrives. Write up a random calling order and give each person a copy to ensure two humans aren’t calling her at the same time, and let the fun begin. 

Be sure each person has a fun party with the dog when she gets there! This not only burns off dog energy, it gives the kids something to do, and it helps improve your dog’s recall.

Ball Pit. For this one you need a kiddie wading pool and a generous supply of non-toxic, sturdy ball-pit balls. Put a towel down to cover the bottom of the pool (so the sound doesn’t startle your dog), fill the pool with balls (no water!), and let the fun begin! If your dog doesn’t take to it immediately, toss treats and favorite toys into the pool and let her – or help her – dig for them.

Snuffle Mat (and other food toys). Interactive food-dispensing toys are a simple solution to many dogs’ winter blues. We particularly like “snuffle mats,” where you bury treats in the cloth fingers of a textured mat and let your dog go to it. If you have a dog who wants to eat the mat or, in contrast, just isn’t interested, there are many other options, including treat-dispensing toys your dog pushes around, and puzzle toys she has to solve to get the treats. (See “Play with Your Food,” WDJ April 2019).

Flirt Pole. This is simply a sturdy pole with a rope fastened to one end and a toy fastened to the rope. You can make one or buy one. To play, stand in one place and swing the toy around for your dog to chase. (You can also practice “Trade” to get the toy back once your dog has grabbed it; see “Trade Agreements,” WDJ February 2017). 

If your dog tends to bodyslam you (or your kids) while playing this game, stand inside an exercise pen for protection while your dog chases the toy around the outside of the pen. 

These toys are available in better pet supply stores and from online sources such as Chewy.com and Amazon.com. Outward Hound makes one called the “Tail Teaser” and sells it with an extra replacement toy for about $13; Chewy.com also sells one called the Pet Fit for Life Plush Wand Teaser Dog Toy for $11. 

Nose Games. Scent work is surprisingly tiring, and because most dogs love to sniff, it’s also very satisfying for them. It’s also usually an easy game to teach. Have your dog sit and wait (or have someone hold her collar). Hold up a treat, walk six feet away, and place it on the floor. Return to your dog, pause, and then say “Search!” Encourage her to run out and eat the treat. 

After a few repetitions, let her watch you “hide” the treat in an easy spot (on the floor behind a chair leg, etc.). Return and tell her “Search!” Gradually hide the treat in harder places, then multiple treats, and eventually have her in another room while you hide treats. This should keep her quite busy and tire her out nicely. (For much more information, see “How to Teach Your Dog to Play Nose Games,” WDJ September 2019.)

Treadmill. Now we’re getting into activities that require more investments in time and resources. First, of course, you need a treadmill. Be sure to get one that is safe to use with dogs. Dog-specific treadmills generally are smaller than human products (some are made just for small dogs!) and have appropriately sized siderails (for safety, to keep the dog from falling off on the sides). 

You will need to do a very gradual introduction, associating the machine with treats and toys until your dog is very comfortable being near it, and then on it, before you even think of turning it on. Be sure not to overdo the exercise; check with your veterinarian about how much exercise is appropriate for your dog to start with and how you should increase the time (gradually!). 

Cognition Training. Those winter shut-in months are a perfect time to experiment with cognition training for your dog. You don’t need a lot of room, and this brain exercise is surprisingly tiring. You can teach your dog to imitate your specific behaviors (see “Copy That,” October 2013); explore choice (see “Pro-Choice,” November 2016); learn to demonstrate object, shape, and color discrimination and even read! (see “Are Canines Cognitive?” October 2017), and much more.

Indoor Parkour. If you really want to get creative, you can set up an indoor parkour course for your dog, made out of household items. After you’ve taught your dog each of the various obstacles, put them all together into a complete course. Here are some suggestions for obstacles that you can train your dog to navigate: 

• Laundry Leap: Get a laundry basket that’s an appropriate size for your dog, and teach him to jump into and out of it.
• Hoop-De-Do: Best use of a hula hoop ever! Hold it up for your dog to jump through, or wedge it between a chair and a wall for a fixed jump.
• Sweet Roll: Roll up a carpet runner and let your dog unroll it with her nose. (Teach this one by placing treats inside the rug as you roll it so she finds them as she unrolls it.) This would be especially fun if you had a red carpet that your dog could unroll for special guests!
• That Was Easy: A smack of the paw lets your dog share her editorial opinion. These buttons are available from Staples stores and its website – or you can find a variety of wonderful talking buttons at this online site: speaktomecatalog.com (select “buttons”). 
• Go ’Round: A simple orange traffic cone makes a perfect loop-stacle to send your dog around the bend in a different direction.
• Walk the Plank: Place an eight-foot long 2×8 board across two low stools and let your dog walk the plank! Increase the level of difficulty with narrower planks.
• Tunnel o’ Chairs: If you have a smaller dog, start by teaching her to crawl under one folding chair, then add a second chair, then a third, eventually making your crawl tunnel as long as you want it to be!

Whatever your fancy, there should be some activities here that you and your dog can enjoy together when the weather outside is frightful. Stay warm, stay safe, and have fun! 

Remember when you were a kid and your mom would catch you doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing, even though she wasn’t even looking at you? How did she do that? It was magic! 

When we were little, we thought our parents must have eyes on the back of their heads, and this may well have influenced our behavior. We could never be certain that an authority figure like a parent or teacher couldn’t see what we were doing, so in order to avoid punishment we might try to be on our best behavior, just in case. 

The same principle can be applied to positive reinforcement techniques. A child – or, in our case, a dog, can learn that he can be rewarded for good behavior even if the behavior takes place while a parent isn’t looking directly at him. Let’s consider how we can use this “magic” to obtain and hold our dog’s attention, even in the midst of some pretty exciting distractions. 

WATCH ME WATCH YOU

You may have learned to reward your dog for looking at you or for tossing unprompted glances your way. This important behavior is often referred to as “checking in,” and I encourage everyone to reward it generously and frequently so that your dog learns to look to you for guidance in any number of situations. (See “Train Your Dog to ‘Check In,’” WDJ March 2017.)

When you’re teaching this basic skill, one element in particular easily stands out: Every time you reward your dog for checking in with you, you are also checking in with him. In other words, you are looking back at him.

While your dog’s attention is an excellent thing to reinforce, you can increase the power of the check-in behavior by adding just one more element of difficulty, which I will describe right after I explain why it’s worth your while to try.

Through training, most dogs learn to pay attention to us when we’re paying attention to them. They learn that when we’re focused on them, they have a very good chance of receiving some reinforcement. So they pay attention! They watch for cues, or they offer behaviors they know have been rewarding in the past. Clever pooches! 

This is why when you practice the check-in behavior, you soon find you’ve got a dog staring at you or trying to get in front of you to make sure you can see them being a Very Good Dog. 

But what happens after your attention is turned elsewhere? Well, most often, your dog goes back to whatever he was doing before, because “Oh, it seems we’re done here.” From your dog’s point of view, your lack of attention or eye contact usually means the opportunity for food or play has stopped. 

If you’re working on a behavior that requires your dog’s attention, such as loose-leash walking (staying close to you rather than straining at the end of his leash to greet a person or another dog), you might find that as soon as you’re done delivering a treat and you turn your gaze away from your dog, he goes right back to doing the behavior you’re trying to eliminate. If you’re not looking at him, he’s off the hook and he disconnects. Take these scenarios, for example:

• You’re teaching your dog to stand politely next to you while you stop in the street to chat with someone. During training, as you stand with the other person, your eyes are on your dog as you reward him for good behavior. The session goes well and you end it. Later, when you think your dog has the behavior down pat, you stop and talk to someone. As   your eyes and attention are focused on the person, not your dog, your dog jumps up on the person. 
• You’re standing in line at a newsstand with your leashed dog by your side. You’re glancing at him often and he’s being a Very Good Dog as you reward him for good behavior. When it’s time to pay for your purchases and, just for a few moments, you turn your attention away from your dog and to the cashier, your dog starts to pull away, wanting to go check out something on the street a few feet away.
• You’re in a group training class and your dog is doing wonderfully while you’re working with him. As soon as you turn your attention toward the instructor who is speaking to the class, your dog turns his attention to Fifi, the cute little number who’s lying down quietly a short distance to the side.

These are just examples; you can probably think up more scenarios from your own experiences. What’s happening here is quite normal. If we only deliver rewards to our dogs when it’s clear we’re paying attention to them, then it stands to reason that they will figure out pretty quickly that if we’re not paying direct attention, there’s no possibility for reinforcement from us and they’re free to find it elsewhere, whether through social contact, getting to sniff around, or other important dog stuff.

Here’s a simple technique that can help you ensure that your dog becomes a pro at checking in with you – and maintaining that attentiveness – even when you’re not looking at him.

TREAT-DELIVERY WITH EYES FORWARD

The first exercise sounds easy enough, but it can actually be a bit of a challenge. It involves being with your dog on-leash and feeding him treats without ever looking at him – like, at all. Your attention will be focused on something else, anything else, as long as it’s not your dog. You can use your peripheral vision to steal glances if needed. You will:

1. Stand quietly with your dog in a low-distraction area. It can be in the heel position if this is important to you, but it’s not necessary for the purposes of this exercise.

2. Look forward or to the side, but don’t look at your dog.

3. Have some treats ready either in a pouch, a pocket, or in your hand. You can count on using about 15 treats for this exercise.

4. Feed one treat after another to your dog – blindly, without looking at him. Some dogs will remain close enough to you to make this easy. Some won’t and will already be wandering off somewhere (because he knows you’re not looking at him!). That’s why we want him on-leash, so he can’t get any farther than the length of the leash.

5. Don’t call him, don’t make kissy sounds, and don’t look at him, even if you feel him moving around. He’s not going anywhere, he’s on-leash. Use your peripheral vision to find him and feed him.

In a nutshell, you will be delivering free treats straight into your dog’s mouth without looking at him. Don’t peek! If you reach down and his muzzle isn’t there, use your peripheral vision and your hand to find it.

If your dog isn’t engaging at all, try either increasing the value of the treat, shortening the leash a little to keep him closer, or moving to a quieter space to decrease the level of stimuli in the environment. If you still have no luck, consider starting this exercise in a seated position (you, not your dog).

TREAT DELIVERY WITH EYES FORWARD and COUNTING FINGERS: MULTI TASKING SKILLS

This step is an adaptation of a brilliant educational nugget I picked up from the fabulous Emma Parsons at Clicker Expo in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2019. I call it an adaptation because the original exercise incorporates the use of a clicker, where a clicker is clicked immediately before a treat is delivered. I don’t require the use of one, and in fact I prefer that nothing whatsoever gives the dog a hint as to when a treat will be made available to eat.

This exercise involves the blind treat-delivery skill (described above), and it throws in an extra-special feature: Counting fingers while you continue to feed your dog.

The blind feeding and the counting tasks are not connected at all. There is no order or sequence between the two activities. The counting is just an extra activity for you to practice in order to develop and refine your ability to multi-task. 

Before you take on this added level of difficulty, however, make sure your blind feeding skills are super solid, because the last thing you want to do is lose your dog’s attention. Here’s what the exercise will look like:

1  Set yourself up as you did in the previous exercise: You have your dog, on-leash, and a handful of treats in a low-distraction area.

2. Start blind feeding your dog, like you were doing above. Deliver the treats in a steady, calm manner.

3. Have someone stand several feet in front of you where you can clearly see them, and ask them to flash random fingers from one hand in a steady, rhythmic fashion. You will announce how many fingers they are holding up at the same time that you are busy feeding your dog the treats.

In other words, it’s not a matter of calling out a number then feeding a treat, calling out the next number and feeding a treat, etc. They are completely separate events occurring randomly. What you’re aiming for is being able to feed your dog continuously and also once in a while calling out a number you see before you. There is no loop, no predictable sequence. You’re training yourself to multi-task.

Part of your brain should be busy feeding your dog without looking at him. The other part should be engaged with counting fingers and saying the numbers out loud. One activity could be proceeding at a faster speed than the other; they are two distinctly different things for you to focus on.

Why? Because in real life with your dog, you are focused on many different things at once. If your attention is super-focused on something other than your dog, like using the ATM machine or keeping an eye on those off-leash dogs heading your way, you need to be able to teach your dog to stay connected with you nonetheless (and maintain that behavior over time).

As a bonus, you’ll note that through these exercises, you are indirectly teaching a type of “stationing behavior” whereby your dog learns to stay close if you’re standing still. He also learns to be aware of your movements while on-leash. This type of attention is especially handy in a crowded area or under very exciting conditions like an activity where there are lots of other dogs.

As an additional and unexpected bonus, I can almost guarantee you will laugh and giggle through many of these practice sessions. It’s the dog-training equivalent of rubbing your tummy and tapping the top of your head at the same time. Enjoy the process, and reap the rewards when you finally have a dog who checks in with you even when your attention is elsewhere!