Keeping your service dog exercised and enriched can be a challenge! Three factors that can complicate the picture are…

• Cold, stormy weather
• Snow and ice-covered ground
• The short, dark days of winter

A further complication for many of you is having a disability that causes fatigue, pain, immobility, or otherwise makes it hard for you to consistently exercise your dog. We will have a future blog addressing that specific situation as well.

TIP: Physical exercise is important, but don’t discount mental exercise, too. A mental workout can really wear your dog out! Use both for the ultimate in a well-behaved service dog or service dog in training (SDiT).

Here are a few fun ways to work your dog’s body and mind when the weather is lousy, the evenings are dark, or conditions are hazardous. Different options will work for different dogs and households.

Nose Work Calms Dogs

Using the nose is particularly good for dogs’ brains and bodies. Did you know that a 2023 study showed that dogs’ heart rate drops when they sniff? The more vigorously they sniff, the lower their pulse goes! If you would like to help your dog to learn to relax and calm down, enabling them to use their nose constructively will help a lot!

Here are several ways to exercise your dog’s mind, which also support good training and behavior, and are fun for you and your dog!

Hide and seek in the house – version 1 — find the human: Put your dog in a Sit-Stay or Down-Stay — or if they don’t know that yet, have another member of the family hold them — then go and hide. In the beginning, “hide,” very close by, even in plain sight. Make it extremely easy. Call your dog once and wait for him to find you. Give him praise, petting, and treats when he finds you. This is also great for training coming when called. Note: This can be a great game for kids, as well as adults, as long as the dog and child are both regulated and have the ability to play calmly. If you have a young, jumpy, nippy dog and/or a similarly excitable child, the excitement of the dog finding the child may result in undesirable overarousal. In this case, version #2 of hide-and-seek, below, is a better option.

Hide and seek in the house – version 2 — find a toy or find the food: Put your dog in a Sit-Stay or Down-Stay — or if they don’t know that yet, have another member of the family hold them — and hide a little pile of food or your dog’s feeder toy. She has to find it. Nose work can be very tiring. You can hide several piles of food or feeder toys all over the house! To get started with this, again, “hide” the food in the middle of the floor, so it’s very easy to find. Over time, you can get creative — putting it up on a chair or in the bathtub behind a shower curtain. Here are two versions of this game with two of my dogs: Find a tug toy and then play tug (Kismet) or find a food puzzle (Barnum).

Will work for food. Don’t put your dog’s meals in a bowl that only takes a minute for them to eat! Use a feeder toy — see our post on enrichment for ideas to make your dog work for their meals. It keeps your dog occupied for a lot longer, engages their body and mind, and they love it!

I keep some Kongs or Toppls, stuffed with food in the freezer so I can pull one out at any time to keep him occupied. Your dog has to learn how to work up to a frozen feeder toy, so if you’re new to stuffing Kongs or Toppls, please watch the video below on the levels.

Physical Exercise for your Service Dog

A flirt pole is like a cat dancer for dogs. It’s a stick with a rope and a toy attached to it. You can either buy one (the Outward Hound Tail Teaser is my dog’s favorite) or make one by attaching a rope to a pole and a squeaky toy to the end of the rope. (Note: If googling to buy or make this toy, search by “Flirt pole for dogs,” because if you don’t include “for dogs,” you may end up with some NSFW content you didn’t want to find!) Unless you have a large open space in your house — sometimes a basement or a living room works — you usually do need to play this outside. However, it’s a way you can give your dog some pretty intense exercise in a small space, even a very small yard, and it does not require going for a walk. If you have floodlights, you can even do it after dark. If you add training to it (as in the video below), the combined physical and mental enrichment can really tire your dog out in five or ten minutes, equivalent to an hour’s walk. NOTE: Keep the toy low to the ground. Dogs jumping up to grab toys can easily lead to painful and expensive hock injuries. Also, make sure to allow your dog to catch the toy relatively frequently. In the video, Kismet does not get to catch the toy often enough. (I usually do more running, but was holding still for the video, so I kept mis-timing my movement with the toy.)

Play ball with a glow-in-the-dark ball. The Chuckit! Max Glow Pro Launcher is a great toy for playing outside on these short winter days and nights for dogs who really love fetch.

To walk your dog safely in the dark, nighttime safety gear makes a world of difference. I wear a headlamp that I bought at a hardware store so I can see where I’m going. Then, for visibility for traffic, I have a lighted, blinking NoxGear vest for myself and their LightHound vest for one of my dogs. The LightHound will make even very fluffy, thick-coated dogs highly visible. For dogs who don’t have a fluffy ruff, a light-stick collar that glows and blinks is perfect. I purchased one for my little Gromit at Smithland Pet Supply for about $12, including tax.

Get your dog’s steps in. If your dog is confident on the stairs, young, healthy, and nimble, you can give your dog a lot of exercise in a short period by calling him up and down the stairs between two people (and also, again, good recall training!). Make sure the stairs are not too slippery! If you have carpeted stairs in your home, you’re all set. If not, make sure to put carpeted treads or runners on your stairs.

If your dog likes fetch, or if there is only one person in the home, you can play fetch up and down the stairs by standing at the bottom and tossing a toy to the top. You can even toss treats up and down the stairs (see “Kibble Fetch” below). Just make sure your dog is not so excited that he’s not being careful enough. You don’t want your dog to get injured. Don’t do this if stairs are open in the back, wood, slippery, etc. (NOTE: I am the least handy person in the world, but I put carpeted treats on my basement steps. If I can do it, anyone can!)

Train your dog to walk on a treadmill. (If you have one for yourself, you’re all set. If not, you can usually get one free or cheap from Freecycle, Facebook Marketplace, or Craigslist. Take it slow and train it positively (treadmill training video 1 or treadmill training video 2). Some dogs learn to love this!

“Kibble Fetch” is a fun little game where your dog is working for their food, training, and getting exercise, all indoors! And, you can even do it sitting down. Have your dog’s food in a pouch, pocket, or bowl. This game works best in a long hallway or a large space like a living room. Say FIND IT and throw a piece of food. After your dog finds and eats it, say your dog’s name OR “touch” if they know how to hand target. When your dog comes back, feed. Say FIND IT and toss another piece, etc. Here is a video example.

Stay Tuned for Tips for Mobility-Impaired Handlers…

These are just a few options. The possibilities are endless. What about you? How do you keep your dog exercised?

We’ll provide some additional tips specifically for those with physical disabilities, chronic pain or fatigue, etc., in an upcoming post.

https://atyourservicedogtraining.com/exercising-my-service-dog-in-winter/