Want to Improve Your Dog’s Brain Fitness?

Keeping your dog mentally active is as important as keeping them physically active. Here are great ways to exercise your dog’s brain at any age!  Here are the best brain games for Weimaraner dogs!

These game can be played indoors or outdoors. All you need is your dog and a handful of treats. I used to use Milkbone earlier on, than up graded to organic soft chews as Titan got older and needed better quality food that was easy to digest. But you can use anything that drives your dogs nose and salivary glands crazy. To really spoil them and get them working you could even use small pieces of meat, like bacon chips.

Time to Play!

To play the game:

1) Have your dog sit in an open area of your house (like the living room) or a clear area of the yard outside.

Fool Your Dog

2) With the treats, go around and pretend to plant a treat in various places around the house or yard. Go through the work a little, bend down pretending to place each treat behind an object, or beside an object. Is your dog watching you with great interest?! I’m sure!

Finally Bury The Treasure (Treat)

3) Finally, find a great spot to plant the actual treat. Usually behind or beside an object is good. Even on top of an object if it’s not too high for the dog and won’t at some point be a forbidden area. (Don’t mix pleasure with punishment or you will confuse the dog).

Release Your Dog!

4) Go back towards your dog. Give a command to release the dog and allow the dog to go look for the treat. We use “Go find”, but you can use one that’s unique to you, that you like better if you want.

Observe The Seek & Find

5) Watch your dog go crazy as the dog sniffs out the real treat! Does your dog stop at the pretend hiding spots and look for the treats there first? Mine does!

My Dog & I

Also, the possibilities of this game are only limited to your individual dog’s experience with seek-&-find type activities. If you have developed your dogs brain a lot through similar games, you can use more complex hiding spots and keep increasing the challenges. If it’s the first time for you and your dog, keep the hiding spots simple, even leaving the treats in plain view until your dog gets the point of the exercise.

My dog is very old now, but he still looks forward to playing this game. We can’t go too crazy with challenging hiding spots because he does not have the attention span or the experience (we started this game late in his life). But it leaves him mentally exhausted and he sleeps for hours afterwords. I hope you and your dog will have just as much fun with the game too!

Game 2: Magic Cups

Another game you could try, also works on your dog’s keen sense of smell. You will need treats, three plastic cups, and a flat surface that the dog can reach.

Have all three cups lined up, but placed upside down. Place a treat under one cup.

Now, move all three cups around to make it hard to visualize and keep track of the cup with the treat under it.

Magic Cups: Time to Pick The Right One

Get your dog’s attention, see if he or she can get the hidden treat under the cup right away or not.

Does your dog smell each cup carefully to find the treat under the right one, or does the dog go for the right one immediately?!

How Titan Did with This Game?

Titan was really good at this game. He used to find the treat cup right away and knock everything over to get to it!

What does your does your dog do?

Game 3: Hide-and-Seek Where Your Weim Seeks You

This dog versus human version of hide-and-seek is so fun! Have your dog “stay” in one area, while you hide yourself under or behind furniture or use some natural obstacles in an outside environment. Than call your dog to “go find” you.

Watch how your dog runs around looking for you, how long does it take? How challenged was your dog with this game? If you are lucky enough to have another human around, you can have them stay with your dog, almost holding the dog back while you hide, than release the dog to go seek you!

How My Weimaraner and I Did At Hide-and-Seek

Titan had fun with this game, and was very good at finding me. He always found me easily and quickly. I could not defeat his sense of smell for me, even in the outdoors.

How did your dog do with Hide-and-Seek?

Enhanced Hide-and-Seek for Witty Weimaraners

You can modify Hide-and-Seek for your Weimaraner by changing your hiding spots during the game.

Better yet – get more people involved in hiding. Now your dog has to learn their scent too and track them to their hiding spot! Definitely a next level challenge!

Game 3: Weimaraner Muffin Tin Puzzle Game

You can make this puzzle at home. All you need is a muffin tin, treats and enough tennis balls to put one in each muffin spot. To read more visit my published post https://discover.hubpages.com/animals/Dog-Brain-Games Find out what other Weim owners have done to modify this game and make it the best for this intelligent breed!