Fun Stuff to Do with Your Dog

Doing fun activities with your dog is very important. While engaged in fun activities, you will naturally be given opportunities to communicate with your dog and teach it appropriate manners. Fun activities can offer it the chance to interact with other dogs, as well as learn to behave properly. Fun activities that provide exercise for it will keep the dog healthy and mentally engaged. Boredom can lead to behavior problems as can separation anxiety.

  1. Racing

    • Many dogs like to be the fastest at everything, which is why they often think a trip down the stairs in your home is a chance to rush past you to prove it can get to the bottom first. Your dog will enjoy opportunities to race and show its speed. Concrete and asphalt can wear on a dog's paws, however, so choose grass or softly packed dirt to run in. Then just run alongside it, letting the dog enjoy a brisk run. A command like "halt" will teach it to stop when you stop. Be sure to offer the dog plenty of water after the races.

    Agility Course

    • Use children's crawling tubes, plastic toy hoops, soccer cones and other obstacles to create a basic dog course. If you have a swing set in your yard, then you can include walking up the ladder and sliding down the slide in the course. With your dog on a leash, slowly lead it through the course three to four times, in the same order each time. Then remove the leash and give it a command like "go" to run through the course on its own. If the dog gets confused, run out and guide it to the next stop on the course until it gets back on track.

    Water Play

    • Many breeds enjoy water play, swimming and other water activities. If you have a dock area for your dog to run off of and jump in the water, then it will enjoy that. You can throw a ball or a floating toy into the water and let the dog swim out to get it. At home, turn on the hose, and spray water in an arc. Let the dog run in and out of the water and even try to drink from the spray. Fill up a child-sized pool with water and a couple of floating toys and let it splash around in it.

    Ball Play

    • A basic game of fetch can teach your dog obedience and commands and give it plenty of exercise. Throw a favorite ball or stuffed toy, then give the dog a verbal command to run and get it. When it returns to you with the item, teach it a command like "release" and have it learn to drop it, rather than tugging it out of its mouth. Most breeds love to play fetch and will return for many repeats of the game.