Langley starts twisting...

Recently Langley had a visit from Behavioral Veterinarian, Dr. Louisa Beal.  I learned a lot and we are putting some of the things she taught us into play and seeing some results already. One of those results is he is now sleeping through the night. (Bless you, Dr. Beal.)

Langley, working the Twister puzzle on the easy setting

One of the things we talked about was brain exercise vs. body exercise.  While exercising a dog's body is important, it is only one part of keeping a highly intelligent, high energy dog busy. Dog's like Langley also need a brain work out. Helping them work out their brain can be nearly as energy draining as a brisk walk.

Playing with the Magic Mushroom, a food dispensing toy

While we have a ton of food dispensing toys like the Kong Wobbler, Petsafe Mushroom, Starmark Pickle Pocket, Buster Cube, etc.  I've never really used the true puzzles with my dogs. My dog Frodo tends to attempt the quickest possible way to the food which often involves chewing into it or breaking it apart to get inside.  I mean why take the time to do a puzzle to open something up when you can just smash it open?

Dr. Beal thought I should try some out with Langley so the other day I purchased the Nina Ottosson puzzle "The Twister".  It was rated "hard" however, there were ways to start out at an easier level and then slowly up the difficulty so I felt like it might last a little longer.

Because all the food dispensing toys he's played with before work by getting thrown around the room, this was Langley's initial instinct of how to get the food out (which probably would have worked) so I had to hold the puzzle down.  But he quickly figured out that the food was behind the sliders and he went to work getting those pieces moving.

Because he is just learning the puzzle, to start with I removed all the little bone pegs that lock the sliders in place. That would just be too tough and frustrating with him first starting out.

He did great and LOVES the puzzle.  In fact he loves it so much that we have to put it away when he isn't watching or he'll obsess about figuring out how to get the closet open so he can get the puzzle out again.

This is going to be a fun game that we can play together and because I'm such a dog nerd, I find it fascinating to see how he problem solves and am excited to see how he does when we start adding the pegs. 

 

Well, adding all but one peg. Langley would like to provide this public service photo to show that puzzle toys are something you work on together with your dog. Dogs shouldn't be left unattended while playing with a puzzle, both for the puzzle's safety as well as their own.