Cooper’s energy knows no bounds.
For instance, on Saturday, I took him for a long walk in the morning, he had a puppy play date at the dog park in the afternoon, our 10-year-old neighbor came and took him to play in the park in the evening, and by nightfall he was jumping all over Lucas.
Lately, we’ve been having a lot of pretty severe thunderstorms. Luckily (thankfully) my guys don’t seem to be bothered by the storms (other than Lucas will not go outside when it’s raining…). However, it gets difficult to expend Cooper’s energy when it’s thundering and lightening for days on end.
Thus, the “go find it” game. When the weather is too bad to go outside, we play this periodically throughout the day. The video below is our third take, so he’s moving a little slow at this point (take 1, the UPS man came; take 2, he actually couldn’t find one of the treats), but you’ll get the idea.
The stairs work best in terms of tiring him out because it’s just that much more work for him to go up and down to “find” the treats; however, we play this game all over the house.
For example, if I spot a dog about to walk past our front windows – and I know Lucas is nearby and will probably bark – I toss a treat far in the opposite direction and tell him to “go find it.”
Lastly, for a variation on this, we play “stair ball.” It’s the exact same game but with a toy instead of a treat!
What are your strategies for bad weather exercise?
He is quick on the stairs!
Heather, he can do that 20ish times in a row without slowing down!! On a really stormy day, we do 3 sets of 20 reps! 🙂
I believe “Go Find It” is in Hurley’s future once the rain comes back this Fall!
Cooper and Scout are a lot alike in that they can run and play until they literally collapse. Then they nap 15 minutes and are fully recharged to go again. We don’t have stairs, but I throw a ball inside so Scout has to race up and down the hallway when she can’t be outside playing. And the more time she is stuck inside, the more she wrestles with the cats.
@Sarah, I bet Hurley will love it!!
@Ann, I don’t know how they do it. Truly. And I don’t know about you, but it wears me out just trying to tire Cooper!
We have been using the hide and seek idea that we learned from your blog and the dogs LOVE it! They have gotten really good at staying and waiting until they hear “come find me!” and then running up and down the stairs until they finally find us! Good way to tire their brains out and expend a little bit of energy even though they are like Cooper and ready to go again after 2 minutes of rest 🙂