Simple Ways to Make Winter Easier with your Dog!
Winter in Canada is a long season and having a dog cooped up in the house can make things unbearable. Below we’ll share some easy things to do with your dog to make it through winter with less stress.
It’s not the quantity of time that you spend with your dog that’s important, it’s the quality of that time.
Dog’s are a very calm, relaxed species that are programmed to rest and conserve energy for hunting. Basically, if humans didn’t interfere with a dog’s life, they would sleep most of the time. Unfortunately, many dog’s develop behaviour issues because of overstimulation and not being allowed to rest.
Many owners also focus only on physical exercise than psychological exercise. When we only focus on exercising the body and not the mind, we are creating an athlete with stamina which will be harder to have relax.
“Psychological Exercise is more important than Physical Exercise”
Exercising a dog psychologically drains energy. Remember those times cramming for an exam in college? How exhausting was that? You didn’t exercise your body; you exercised your brain.
Ways to exercise a dog’s brain Indoors
- Have your dog practice impulse control
- Have your dog practice calmness in the house with distractions
- Have your dog practice being in one place when company is over
- Have your dog practice structured fetch
- Have your dog learn tricks
- Take an indoor training workshop to learn something new
- Hide things in the house for your dog to find
Things to do outside with your dog
- Learn skijoring
- Teach your dog how to pull a sled
- Creating a fun obstacle course in your backyard with your snowblower
- Snowshoe with your dog
- Hide things in the snow for your dog to find
- Get away from winter and go on a vacation with your dog
The biggest things to remember is SPRING IS COMING!