Author: Melanie Williams-Clarke

Never underestimate the the important of mental stimulation for your dogs, especially for your pups. Mental Stimulation goes a long way to preventing behavioural problems in pups and dogs due to boredom. Pups who are bored often become hyperactive and distracted which can manifest into unwanted behaviours like not listening, running around, chewing, barking and digging. Puzzle games or what I like to refer to as basic nose work games, such as those above is a great way to train your pup on focusing on a one activity at a time. It is also a great way of spending quality time with your pup together developing the bond in a fun and easy environment.

Toys such as the one above is great place for little pups to start out with puzzle games  and then they progress to more advanced nose work games. If you don’t have access to to these types of toys, which I can understand, as some people not wanting to spend the money on for one pup/dog who just gets it first and loses interest quite quickly (least we can reuse over and over in each litter) then nose work games can be as simple as the “which hand game” (put food in one hand and get the pup to sniff out when he/she gets excited about one hand open and hopefully he/she has chosen the treat and gets the jackpot if not a smaller reward such as ordinary kibble is good to keep them trying, plus lots of  praise either way) then as u progress you can hide food around a room, in a certain fenced of section of the backyard etc and then once they get really good you could advance to hide and seek (you hide they seek).

Barrier Challenges are all about learning and problem solving and although you may look at this and say that’s not that hard it is important that when we are formal training the pups that the pups experience the following things: Although we want the exercises to be challenging we want to set the pups up for success. In this exercise we want the pups to think for themselves and learn that their whinging doesn’t get them what they want (in this insance me, lifting them out of the pen) As the reward/incentive, I’m purely using myself outside their pen, as they have spent the whole morning watching me and the adult dogs cleaning and playing around the outside of the pen and they want to know what all the fuss is about and why they haven’t been allowed out.

However although they want out of their pen to me this first experience by themselves comes with fear, self doubt and frustration (you can see this in Desi actions at the end) about the task. This task however can be very empowering and bring confidence and competency in future adventures.

One important factor when teaching your puppy any challenge is never leave the puppy in the middle of the challenge as this can stress the puppy out and reverse the above positive experiences. Word of warning don’t give in, as puppies are really good at making you feel sorry for them (however always keep in mind, as above, always create a challenge that you know they can succeed at without your interference). Awesome work flower power kids.❤️

The wobble board was added to the pen about a week ago now and the flower power crew seem to be using it more and more everyday. Some of you have probably seen something similar to this in a physiotherapist office as it often used for weight-bearing therapy and muscle strengthening rehab. 

We use the wobble in the pen for similar training but for the puppies its more about them learning to hone their multi-directional balance skills and improve body awareness. At this stage we just want the puppies to get use to seeing it and using it when they want. It currently has carpet under it to soften the changes in board when it moves. Once the puppies are use to it we will remove the carpet for ultimate movement and startle recovery exercises.

So the next question you may be asking is all of the above sounds great but why specifically would I want this for my puppy. The main reason we have incorporated the wobble board into our puppy program is for confidence, a confident puppy is more happy, well adjusted, puppy. Also “Most of us think of dogs as being very agile.  And although this is true, most dogs have very little hind limb awareness.  Basically, their hind end moves along because their front end went first!  Teaching our puppies to have better hind limb awareness can greatly decrease their risk of injuries to their back legs” https://www.fullcirclevet.ca/canine-body-awareness/.