Dogs love to play. They can spend hours chewing on their favorite ball, playing with a puzzle toy or tumbling around with a furry or human friend.
This is because playing isn’t just a fun way for dogs to spend time. Staying active provides physical and mental stimulation for dogs, improving their overall quality of life.
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of play and how to provide sufficient mental stimulation for your dog.
The Science Behind Play
Dogs are among the only animals who continue playing even after adulthood. Research on why adult dogs play suggests that when humans first domesticated wolves, they selected those that were more playful than others in their pack. Such wolves were not only cute to our human sensibilities, but their willingness to play made it easier for us to restructure their physical and mental capabilities into what we need from close animal companions.
Today, playing teaches dogs numerous lessons. A dog that plays with another dog or a human learns how to chase, control its bite and defend itself. Playing with a dog toy teaches it how to tug, bite and chew. Running and falling improves its agility and teaches it how to avoid injuries.
Play also teaches dogs socialization skills. When playing with your dog, you can teach it where to play and how to interact with humans and obey commands. Playing with other animals shows your dog how to make friends, control its strength and manage conflict. Learning self-regulation and cooperation helps your pup make friends and become a successful member of a pack.
Taking a closer look at why dogs play also showed researchers the mental benefits of playtime. Dogs that play with humans, toys and other animals know how to react to strange people, objects and animals. Such dogs can quickly adapt to changes without getting distressed or acting out.
The Importance of Mental Stimulation for Dogs
Mental stimulation is often an overlooked aspect of dogs’ play. However, exercising your dog’s brain is crucial for its healthy development.
A dog that isn’t mentally stimulated tends to lose its ability to overcome basic obstacles, solve problems and deal with stress. Keeping your dog’s brain active helps it encounter challenges fearlessly and creatively solve problems that may not require physical strength.
Mentally stimulating exercises also strengthen the communication and memory cells in your pup’s brain. Using puzzle toys and other brain games for dogs can reduce the occurrence of symptoms of dementia as your pet grows older.
Dogs that lack mental stimulation can get bored and sleep excessively, bark too much, destroy property and test the boundaries of their wireless fences. Keeping your dog occupied with puppy mental stimulation toys can help curb unwanted behavior and resolve the symptoms of mental conditions such as depression and anxiety.
Physical Benefits of Play for Puppies
Physical exercise works hand-in-hand with mental stimulation to keep your dog healthy and fit.
Taking daily walks moves food through your pup’s digestive tract and gives it a chance to have bowel movements and urinate, reducing uncomfortable constipation and bloating.
Physical exercises also strengthen your pup’s muscles and bones, lowering the likelihood of serious injuries when it falls while playing or fighting.
Keeping your pup active is important for maintaining its heart health as well. Exercise helps your dog’s heart pump with less effort, reducing the likelihood of conditions such as high blood pressure. Exercise also burns calories that could lead to high cholesterol, obesity and other health issues.
The Halo Collar 3 enhances and keeps up with your dog’s active lifestyle. You can create and store up to 20 virtual fences in the collar to ensure your pup has plenty of space to run around in.
The collar features an active antenna and AI software that receive and transmit quality GPS signals, even in areas with a lot of trees and cloud cover. This gives you the freedom to take your dog hiking, camping or swimming so it can safely exercise outdoors.
Additionally, the Halo Collar 3 acts as an activity tracker for dogs. You can use the Halo app to see the amount of activity your pet gets on a daily basis and adjust its feeding schedule to prevent underfeeding or overfeeding.
4 Types of Games and Toys That Stimulate a Dog’s Mind and Body
1. Obedience Training
Obedience training provides physical and mental stimulation for dogs by helping them use their brains to learn and memorize new commands. Yard, collar, leash and playground training also let dogs interact with new environments, people and other animals.
Cesar Milan’s dog training is a dog mental stimulation methodology created by a renowned dog behaviorist. You can access the training through the Halo app to teach your pup how to obey verbal commands and the feedback cues issued by the Halo Collar 3.
2. Exploring New Environments
Once your dog knows how to obey your orders and the Halo Collar 3’s feedback, you can provide it with physical and mental stimulation through outdoor excursions.
Slightly change the route during your daily walks to challenge its memory retention. Drive with it or use public transport to teach it how to behave around strangers.
Interacting with nature through hiking or water sports also helps your dog learn how to stay safe in an environment filled with distractions such as rabbits, squirrels, crabs and fish.
3. Agility Course
Agility training challenges your dog’s mind capacity. A DIY agility course in your home or yard can improve your dog’s problem-solving skills as it finds creative ways of weaving through obstacles.
4. Dog Stimulation Toys
Dog stimulation toys, such as Bluetooth dog toys, are among the most popular tech-driven pet products among dog owners. Interactive toys such as the Kong Classic mentally stimulate your dog as it chews through to get to a hidden snack.
If you’re wondering how to tire a puppy out, give it dog treat puzzle games like the Puppy Hide N’ Slide that gently massages its gums until it falls asleep.
The Balance Between Play and Rest
Rest is just as important as play in providing mental stimulation for dogs. When your pup rests, its brain processes the socialization and problem-solving skills it learned while playing. Internalizing these skills makes it easy for the pup to display good behavior in its daily life.
Rest is also crucial for your dog’s physical development. A dog that gets too tired during play can easily pull muscles or break its bones. Resting lets its body reset and generate more energy for future play sessions.
Your pup should rest a few times a week. Rest days may involve taking shorter walks or playing outdoors for less time than usual. Mental stimulation toys are also a great solution for the issue of how to tire out a dog and get it to rest.
You can use the activity tracking feature on the Halo app to regulate the intensity of your dog’s daily physical and mental exercise. Restructuring a virtual fence to reduce the distance it can go before the collar issues feedback ensures it doesn’t exhaust itself on rest days.
Monitoring its movement via the Halo app also lets you determine if it’s bored and find ways to keep your dog engaged.
The Role of Human Interaction in Enhancing Playtime Benefits
Humans bred dogs to be playful, so both puppies and adult dogs find playing with people very rewarding. Setting aside time to play with your furry friend is crucial to its wellness.
Interactive games teach your dog rules and boundaries that guide its interactions with humans and property. You can turn any game into a lesson by introducing new challenges. For example, when playing fetch, you can treat the ball as a reward by having your dog search for it only after responding to a command to sit or stop barking.
Playtime can also offer opportunities for the two of you to bond. Giving verbal praise or physical rewards such as scratches, pats and cuddles is an intentional way of getting closer to your pup.
Halo Collar training is an interactive process that strengthens your relationship with your dog. The training turns you into a pack leader your pup can trust and obey. It also uses positive reinforcement methods such as praise, dog treats and rewards to teach your pup to quickly respond to the collar’s feedback and return to safety.
Creating a routine of playing and training using the latest exercises on the Halo app can provide your dog with long-term physical and mental stimulation.
Get Started With Mental Stimulation for Dogs
Play is crucial for a healthy lifestyle for dogs. It keeps them physically fit, mentally sharp and protected from mental and neurological conditions.
The Halo app has numerous ways of providing mental stimulation for dogs. Pairing the app with the Halo Collar 3 lets you monitor and regulate your dog’s activity level as it pursues physically and mentally stimulating exercises.
Get the Halo Collar 3 today and get the latest training and games to keep your dog mentally stimulated.
