This was my street a week ago. Padfoot and I are still dealing with the weather. Wesleyan still has not been plowed, and with temps below 10 degrees, our morning walks are short. Most of the neighborhood sidewalks are foot-wide channels, so forget the usual training exercises. That means doing more indoors.
I needed to ramp up my indoor training anyway. Turns out, foundational exercises for reactivity are often done indoors to avoid distractions. in my last post I mentioned preempting reactive triggering. The key to my current strategy is the 1, 2, 3 Game. This involves teaching your dog that when you say “1, 2, 3”, a treat will magically appear under his nose when you say “3”. (This is so easy. Click the link to see the video)
This is a brilliant exercise, because saying “1” is enough to grab your dog’s attention while giving you 2 more seconds to produce the treat. (always produce the treat. Do not cheat them on this) The added bonus: it fixes his attention on you, which is where you want it to be.
A quick way to wear out your fur child indoors is to sit on the floor of a hall with your back against one wall and your feet against the opposite wall, your legs forming an obstacle. You need a pile of mini treats or kibble. Toss a treat over your legs so your dog needs to jump over them to get it. Then toss a treat in the opposite direction so he has to jump back. Keep doing that. Put a little distance on the throw for more exercise. If he needs to sniff out the treat to find it, so much the better.
You can also “hide” treats while your dog waits in another room, then tell them to “find it.” Padfoot loves this one.
McCann Dog Training has an immense library of training videos on YouTube. I hunted up playlists for indoor games. Here they are:
Games To Exercise Your Dog (without walking)
Indoor Games To Play With Your Dog
Stay warm. Hope this helps!
Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries by C.A. Newsome 