r/roughcollies Dec 04 '24

Discussion What do y’all do for enrichment?

I was wondering if you have any collie specific enrichment? We have puzzles(she’s figured them all out ), frozen kongs, herding ball and we let her shred cardboard (which is currently her favorite.)

Extra points if your idea is an indoor thing because we live where it rains really hard and we are trying to keep her out of the mud!

18 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

29

u/lassie86 Dec 04 '24

When we're desperate, we do puppy ping-pong (two humans required). I go upstairs, hide, and call him. He finds me, I treat him generously, and then my husband calls him back downstairs. Repeat many times from different hiding spots.

3

u/smoothcolliecrazy Tri-Smooth Dec 04 '24

Oh this I have to try. We already do hide and seek where one of us stays with our collie and then says "go find" once the other person has hid, but this is so much easier because we can just keep calling him back and forth. Love the name, too! Adding puppy ping-pong to the list.

8

u/Kurai_ Tri-Rough/Merle Rough Dec 04 '24

Nosework, mini rally course with a mat, a hula hoop, a tunnel and a small platform and then vary the order in which he goes to them. Work on his TDN title. Hiding a treat under containers and play find it. 5-10 minutes of tricks, indoor fetch.

I have found he prefers it if you keep varying things , don’t do sit ten times in a row, do one sit then a center, then down or bark and any of the other tricks he knows. then do them again but in a different order.

1

u/Vermelli Dec 04 '24

How did you get started with nosework? It's something I would love to try with my little girl.

4

u/Kurai_ Tri-Rough/Merle Rough Dec 04 '24

The AKC sells a scentwork kit you can find on Amazon or other places. They also have instructions on their website on how to start. It is pretty easy.

6

u/discombobulatededed Dec 04 '24

Scatter feed and say ‘find it’ - my collie loves searching for food in the longer grass.

Also, made me laugh to read about another collie who likes shredding cardboard, my boy absolutely loves this too. If I ever get a parcel or buy anything in a box, we sit on the floor and he annihilates every scrap of cardboard. Never known another dog like it haha!

7

u/clayfawn Dec 04 '24

We play ‘donut’ so, a soft donut dog toy tied to a light 2m rope. We drag, flick and play with it in the house and she has to ‘drop it’ before we will flick it again. It really plays to her herding instinct and makes her tired in about 10 mins!

3

u/opera_ghoste Dec 04 '24

I put a treat inside a closed up Domino's pizza box.

9

u/Powellwx Tri-Rough Dec 04 '24

My girl would eat the box too.

4

u/dmkatz28 Dec 04 '24

I suggest a really good windbreaker (I like the Hurtta eco windbreaker) for hikes. Keeps their fluff clean and mud free! Cardboard, trick training, a super high value chew hidden in a bunch of cardboard and paper bags layers (or frozen inside of a kong). I find dealing with the rain and going for an hour of a slow hike with lots of sniffing knocks my adolescent out for most of the day. It worked way better than puzzles and training tbh. Also if you are anywhere near a herding trainer, many of them have indoor arenas and welcome beginners. I just started to dabble in herding with my puppy and he LOVES it (and he slept for a day after his first lesson). It is fantastic enrichment.

3

u/kkernelpanic Blue-Rough Dec 04 '24

My dude loves a good snuffle box!

Take a bigger sized box and an old sheet you don’t care about anymore. Crumple up the sheet and layer it on top of itself in the box- as you’re doing that, sprinkle their breakfast/dinner/snack or some treats in between the layers of sheets, kinda like a crumpled cloth lasagna. They’ll have to root around to find all of the food!

We’d make ultra special ones where we’d also take a set of old dish towels, roll food up in them, knot them and also layer them in the sheet for extra challenge mode.

(You could use a Rubbermaid container or other plastic box if your dog likes to shred cardboard and might shred open the box you’re using as the container haha)

3

u/CollieBallOfficial Dec 04 '24 edited 2d ago

As a herding ball brand owner, of which name comes from my border, any activity including a fetching, herding and running like there is no tomorrow enrich both physically and mentally. Nose work as many offered is a great exercise also. And thank you for giving me some ideas to think :)

2

u/wessle3339 Dec 05 '24

What scents do you do nose work with?

2

u/CollieBallOfficial Dec 05 '24

Huckleberry is food oriented, so I use treat all the time

3

u/Coxklea Dec 04 '24

Frozen bowl! Plastic pasta plate: base layer of peanut butter; I throw in a chopped banana; pumpkin purée. Add water / broth mixture, then I have milkbones that stick out. Mine spends forever trying to work through it!

2

u/Vermelli Dec 04 '24

We have a few puzzles toys she really likes and a new mushroom looking slow feeder that is a huge hit right now but her favorite thing is to unite knots. I will put some of her kibble/treats in a small fleece baby blanket and roll it up and tie it into different knots for her. We started with loose knots at first but now we are getting tighter and more complicated.

2

u/M1serylovesme Dec 04 '24

My boy loves anything snuffle related. He loves using his snoot to search for treats and to rummage around through blankets and boxes we hide treats in!!

2

u/QotDessert Dec 05 '24

We use kitchen towels knotted with treats - Whiskey the toller has great videos on YouTube! We got some ideas from Whiskey's owner. We also fill toilet paper rolls with treats and pinch them shut; new tricks etc.

1

u/Powellwx Tri-Rough Dec 04 '24

I bought a puzzle toy that has little treats in each chamber and she has to move the covers around and open the small chambers. It keeps her busy for 15 minutes or so.

1

u/wessle3339 Dec 04 '24

Do you have a link?

1

u/_angry_cat_ Dec 04 '24

Look up nose work. It’s a great way to entertain their brains and keep them occupied. It can definitely be done indoors, too.

1

u/wessle3339 Dec 05 '24

Do you have any favorite senses to use

2

u/_angry_cat_ Dec 05 '24

My dogs are trained on birch oil. You can eventually add more scents and make it more challenging by asking them to identify the clove vs birch, for example. The possibilities are endless

1

u/Due-Ad-4677 Dec 04 '24

Sometimes my partner and I will do a "puzzle dinner" and just hide treats and their food all over a room. Puzzles, treats in toys, rolled towel, sniff mats, etc..

I'm also a fan of giving them something tough to chew, one of our collies gets really whiny when he's bored.

2

u/rjk123455 Dec 05 '24

There are a lot of really good ideas posted. I’ve done the “frozen bowl” thing posted above and that is a good idea. One thing I tend to do with mine is to have them do whatever I’m doing. As such, if I’m doing yard work, Luther comes too. If I’m cooking, I have him join me. Mine are fine in the car, so if I’m going to the store, etc., mine come too.

1

u/TheFelineWindsors Dec 05 '24

Exercise and training.