I'm a bit worried. We're supposed to get a blizzard here tomorrow. That means we won't be able to walk outside for awhile. I don't like to walk outside after a snowstorm until I know that people have their sidewalks shoveled and cleared. My border collie is very high energy. He is going to go crazy if I can't get him out for some exercise. When he gets bored due to lack of exercise, he steals whatever he can get away with and puts it in his kennel to chew on. Or he gets really crazy with the kids and jumps up on them and does that play biting thing. I'm going to let him out in the fenced in back yard with the kids to play once the blizzard is over. But, I'm going to need more things to do with him indoors. We have a small house, so there isn't a whole lot of running room. My husband loves to wrestle around with him. What do you all do with your dogs for exercise if they are stuck indoors for awhile?
Do you have a hallway that he could chase a ball up and down the hallway. Perhaps, this is a good time to train your dog. I have trained my dogs to sit and stay and then I walk out the room and they are trained to stay and they do. I trained my dogs to do this both indoors and outdoors.
Training your dog to sit, heel, stay, walk beside you, come, etc. you can do while indoors. It doesn't require a lot of room. When I first trained my dogs to sit and stay, I did so inside my house because there wasn't anything to distract my dogs.
I was in 4H and that is where I learned how to train dogs.
There are lots of websites and videos online for training dogs.
Great point Molly re: chasing a toy down the hall. I have a short hall, but she still loves to chase the toys down & bring them back!
I also made a toy for her - one sock stuffed with 3-4 socks & tied off & she loves to play with it on the bed! I play tug of war with her, let go & she shakes it as she would if in the wild trying to finish off her prey ! We play for 20-30 minutes at a time on the bed. I also get off the bed & crouch down, sneak from side to side & she gets very animated & starts to bark. I can rough her up a little with my bare hand & she never bites down hard, but I added a dimension I used to do with one of our dogs many years ago, I put on an old glove & it's like my friends training their Shepherd or Malinois for police work, she recognizes it & bites, still not hard but she has a ball!
12-22-2012, 12:25 AM, (This post was last modified: 12-22-2012, 12:29 AM by Ram.)
You can have your pet chase you around the house. Have a snack in your hand, once they see this, they will not stop running after you. Of course, you'd have to get some exercise in and run as well but if you don't want to do that there are other options. You and a friend can sit across from each other with sufficient space between the two of you, get one of your dogs toys and throw it back and forth. Once your dog sees that it is his/her toy that the two of you are throwing then he/she will definitely run back and forth--following their toy.
When we had to live in a condominium I use to walk the dog around the parking area in the basement if it was too cold. We'd jog there for around 30 minutes and take the elevator to different levels. The corridors were also spacious so sometimes we'd play fetch there in the middle of the day when most of the residents were at work.
