Adventure Dog Blog

I’m always looking for creative ways to exercise my dogs because my big girl Anna needs more than a walk around the block can offer. For awhile now, we haven’t lived close enough to a good off leash park to play with other dogs much, so it’s up to me to come up with entertainment and things to keep her mind busy.

Something that has worked before during the summer are bubbles! We used to just use regular bubble soap, but now the pet stores have caught on and actually offer flavored bubbles for your canine friends!

You can click here if you’d like to see the bubbles offered for dogs at the Crazy Pet Shop!

With winter upon us, I’ve discovered that my little Chublet cannot tolerate the cold. This isn’t unusual for pugs, but he can’t even go around the block. Both he and Anna are dying for some exercise and playing at the park just isn’t an option right now.

One solution I’ve found for their boredom and need for socialization is the meetup. There is this website online called Meetup.com where people can arrange all kinds of shared interest groups, and there are a lot of dog groups. Most large cities have breed specific groups and sometimes general dog play groups.

I’m pleased that I found Meetup.com because I found the local pug meetup group and have taken Chublet to play with other pugs once a month for awhile now. At first he was terrified, but now he takes off and plays. It’s been essential for socializing him and teaching him how to behave around other dogs.

Now that winter is here, I realized that finding a good meetup that both dogs can attend will solve part of our problem with the weather. I discovered that we don’t really have a general dog meetup that allows any breed, but found that the bulldog meetup would let me bring my dogs to play. Better yet, joining the meetup is free, and play days just cost a five dollar drop in fee per family.

If you are looking for a good opportunity to socialize your dogs, or need somewhere to play indoors during the winter, you can try looking on Meetup.com and see if there are any groups in your area that offer indoor play!

When it’s windy and cold outside, my dogs are almost as hesitant as I am to go and play outside. Almost. Well actually, they’d probably drag me to the park if it was up to them, but sometimes I must refuse.

It’s frustrating when days can go by and the dogs haven’t had their daily fix of romping exercise with other dogs. What can a dog owner do on those days to keep their dogs from tearing up the house with pent-up energy?

The following is a list of activities that you can do with your dogs during the winter months to keep them in top shape and happy:

1. Find a local dog meetup. Many of these groups will meet indoors at a local dog daycare where dogs can run and romp together and nobody has to stand around outside.

2. Visit your dog friendly friends. Taking your dog to someone else’s house can be enough to break up the monotonous routine of their day. Even better, visit a friend that has dogs and let the dogs play together in the yard, or even in the house.

3. Join a flyball team. Flyball is a sport for dogs and their owners where the dogs run a race, jumping over jumps to catch a ball at the end. Flyball teams are always hoping to find small dogs to compete as the height of the jumps are set by the smallest member of the team. This sport is often played indoors so it’s great for the winter.

4. Take your dog to the pet store. Whenever you run off to get that new bag of food or pick up some treats, load those dogs into the car and take them with you! Going for a ride, sniffing out a new place, and meeting other dogs can be an exciting outing!

5. Visit your local dog daycare. We run a dog daycare from our home where dogs come to play with us, and often stay overnight. There are also larger commercial dog daycares run in buildings with big playrooms for the dogs. You can use dog daycares to ensure your dog gets enough socialization, exercise, and entertainment. Some daycares are now setting up indoor dog parks, so look for one in your city.

6. Teach your dog some more tricks. A training session can involve lots of laying down, jumping up, spinning around, and more. You can use a training session to give your dog some entertainment and mild exercise.

7. Play hide and seek. Lots of dogs enjoy a good game of hide and seek where they have to find you, or find a toy that you’ve hidden. We will tell Anna to wait, and let her sit in the livingroom while we go off and hide a toy somewhere. Then when we say “okay!”, she knows it’s time to go find her toy. We had to make things very easy the first few times we played, but as she caught on, we had to make things harder and harder. I know a woman with a border collie that LOVES this game, but she has to go down into her basement and hide the ball in the sleeve of a coat or buried in things, because he’s so good at finding it!

8. Dance. There are people who participate in musical freestyle, a combination of obedience and dance. If you can train your dog a few basic moves, you could be dancing together in no time!

9. Get down and wrestle. My big dog Anna has always really liked it when I get down on the floor with her to play. Her tail wags like crazy if I push her down onto her back and sniff at her ears and face. She used to be a little rambunctious for play like this, but now that she’s older, she’s pretty gentle with me. I get just as much exercise as she does when we wrestle!

10. Blow bubbles. One summer we discovered that Anna just loved chasing bubbles. If you have a room in your house where it won’t cause problems to get some soap on the floor, mix up yourself a batch of bubbles, find a bubble wand, and start blowing. Anna goes wild snapping and catching them in her mouth. It’s really fun!

Anna and Mr. Meaty are pretty excited to hear that there are Scout Troops for dogs! Dog Scouts of America has troops all over the U.S and a few in Canada. They are a non-profit organization “dedicated to educating the public about responsible dog ownership and the important role of the human/canine bond.”

On their website you’ll find a LOT of information about dogs, with subjects ranging from activities, sports, training, behavior issues, responsible ownership, containment, puppies, and more. There are articles on various dog sports, activities, and fun things to do with your dogs.

If you are interested, there is a map of existing troops, or you can find information on starting your own Dog Scout Troop. Find out about Dog Scout camps and register for a lot of fun!

Visit Dog Scouts of America today.

A tired dog is a happy dog, and a dog with a job must be even happier! Search and rescue is an incredible job, and according to the DogsWithJobs website, “one trained search and rescue dog is as effective as ten trained human searchers.”

While this sort of job can be very rewarding, it calls for a lot of time, training, and committment. Dog Play offers a description of what is involved in getting your dog into search and rescue, and a lot of helpful links.

Want a real adventure? Give your dog a job!

My dog Anna has a huge nose, I mean immense! I can only imagine how much she can smell in one sniff. And of course, if you own dogs, you know that sniffing is really natural and fun for dogs.

Tracking is when a dog uses their nose to follow a scent trail. You’ve probably heard of police using dogs to track crimminals. Well tracking is an awesome activity that you can enjoy with your dogs!

According to The Tracking Page, any dog can learn to track while some are easier to train than others. On their page, you can also find tracking logs on how the webmaster trained various dogs to track. There’s also information about books on tracking, links to websites on tracking, a glossary of tracking terms, and a section of sample tracks you can use with your dogs!

Visit The Tracking Page for more information on teaching your dogs tracking!

In an earlier post, I wrote about a dog pack that carries water so you don’t have to carry it for your dog. Now I’d like to tell you about Dog Packing!

Dog packing is when you use a backpack on your dog so that he/she can help you carry the load when hiking and adventuring.

Dogs are strong and according to the Guide to Dog Packing, they can carry about one quarter of their own body weight! That’s a lot if you have a huge dog like Anna around. She weighs around ninety pounds at the moment, so that means she could easily carry twenty pounds in a dog pack.

I bet she could carry Mr. Meaty in a backpack on her back!

Read the Guide to Dog Packing for information on training a dog to wear a pack, fitting a dog with a pack properly, trail etiquette and where to get further information for planning your trip.j

Go hiking with your dogs and go Dog Packing!

Considering I’ve taken my dogs adventuring in Mexico and spent lots of time with them on the beaches, by the rivers, and in the jungle, I don’t feel a lot of concern when I think about taking them camping.

However, camping with dogs in North America probably means a lot of on-leash activities and being careful about proximity with other dogs, and children. There are other hazards as well such as ticks and heat exhaustion.

If you’re thinking of going camping, this useful article titled “Camping With Your Dog(s)” will help you to cover all the bases and have a wonderful camping experience.  Don’t be afraid to go camping with your dogs!

I’ve always loved teaching my dogs tricks and I’m always on the lookout for new things. I attended an obedience class once where the teacher had taught her dog some “dance” moves. I thought it was a pretty cute idea, but I didn’t realize that dancing with dogs is a whole sport of it’s own.

According to Wikipedia, Musical Canine Freestyle is “is a modern dog sport that is a mixture of obedience, tricks, and dance that allows for creative interaction between dogs and their owners.”

You can find out more information on the sport, find online classes, and find links at the Musical Dog Sports Association.  Dance with your dogs!

When we move back to Canada from Mexico, we will be moving to a smaller city than before, and not only am I dreading that this city will have very few offleash parks, but I know it’s going to be hard for the dogs to be on leash at all after our fun here in the jungle. My dogs like to run free!

My big dog in particular requires a lot of heavy exercise or she gets fat and I’ve been trying to think of ways I can keep her trim. Poking around on the web, I remembered Flyball, a sport for dogs that can be played by any breed of dog, including mixed breeds like Anna.

In Flyball, teams of dogs run a relay race in which they run across a setup of four hurdles and then hit a springboard to release a tennis ball which they have to return to their owner back at the starting line. When one dog returns with the ball, the next dog is released.

Lots of people play Flyball with their dogs as an opportunity to have fun and get their dog some wicked exercise. It’s especially good for herding dogs and other high energy breeds that really need to “work” to be happy. With Flyball, you can also compete, and the North American Flyball Association holds sanctioned events in 39 states and provinces.

You can get all kinds of information about Flyball for your dogs on the NAFA website, including “what is flyball”, the rulebook, tournament listings, and official world records.