Anyone who owns a pet knows that physical exercise for pets is important; not only for the pet’s health, but to prevent boredom which leads to frustration and potentially destructive bad habits. Here at Affables’ Snacks HQ we love to give our furry kids lots of physical exercise. For Affie that means at least three nature walks per day plus rope tugs, our ‘girlfriend chase me’ game, or ball fetch. For our cats, Ophelia plays fetch and both cats love to chase laser lights or go bug hunting outside on a long leash. We don’t let our cats run free outdoors because we don’t want them killing birds or pooping in the neighbours flower beds.

Nature walks are not only physically stimulating for dogs but are full of mental stimuli!

Bug hunting stimulates the mind and the body for cats. If there are no bugs then we hide treats in the grass for the cats to sniff out.

Outside activity is great but what happens when the weather turns cold or you, as a pet parent, are super busy with work from home or family activites and the pets are bored? Enter ‘brain games’!

Here are a few of our favorite brain games:

Toilet Tube Treat Dispenser

Empty toilet paper tubes or paper towel tubes make great ‘destructable’ treat dispensers. Simple take a tube, fold one end to close the tube and put some tasty treats into the tube, fold the other end and let your pet go to town. We fill our tubes with Affables’ Snacks because the treats have an appealing smell giving the pets a reason to dig into the tube. The other thing you can do is smear peanut butter or cream cheese inside the tube, freeze it and then give your pet a tasty ‘tube popsicle’. For our cats we tie a string to the tube and hang it from the ceiling with the top of the tube open so the cats have to bat the treat to knock treats out of the tube.

Ophelia banging away at a treat-filled toilet tube.

Muffin Tin Hide-and-Seek Shell Game

Grab a muffin tin and some tennis balls. Start off just putting treats in the muffin tin and let your dog or cat retrieve the treats. Then build up the complexity of the game by covering the treats in the tin with balls. Your pet will have to remove the balls to get to the treats. Advance to having just one or two of the muffin cups holding treats. Your pet will have to sniff out which cups contain the treats.

Treasure Hunting

An easy brain game is to hide treats around the house for your pet to search for. We do this for the cats. We grab a bag of Affables’ Snacks and start the game by placing snacks on endtables, under the couch, on window sills etc. The cats quickly learn that the treasure hunt has begun and they run around like kids hunting for Easter Eggs. It helps to have treats that have a smell to them for the cats to sniff out their treasures.

Tea Towel Snuffle Mat

Grab a tea towel, fold some treats into the towel and lossely tie a knot in the towel and give it to your dog to try to unravel the towel to get the treats.

The Plastic Cup Shell Game

Grab 3 plastic cups. Get a treat, let your dog watch you and then place a treat under one of the cups. Let your dog tip over the cup and retrieve the treat. Do this several times putting the treat under different cups until your dog perfects the game. Now increase the complexity. Place the treat under a cup and slide the cup into a different position and see if the dog can figure out that the treat cup has moved. Practice this a few times until your dog knows to follow the treat cup closely. Keep increasing the complexity moving the treat cup two times, then three times and see if your dog can keep up.

The Canine Soother

This is the equivelent of an gaming tablet only for dogs. We use a West Paw Quizl Puzzle Treat and fill it with Affables’ Snacks or cheese or peanut butter and give it to Affie to suck, lick and chew out treats. This keeps him occupied for a long time and tires him right out!

The ultimate ‘device’ for entertaining dogs.

Some super tired pets after a round of brain games.

Brain Games for Pets