“I’m panicking because other people are panicking,” said a woman on the news last week.
The news is chock-full of reports and dire warnings about Covid-19, alongside pleas for people to follow the basic hygiene precautions – things they should do every day of their lives anyway.
Coronavirus is highly likely to spread significantly in the coming weeks.
As I write, we’ve just moved into the Government’s “delay” phase, which means that if you have a fever or cough, or think you might have coronavirus, or you’ve been in close contact with a confirmed case, or you’ve come back from the Far East, Italy, or a cruise, you need to self-isolate.
This means you stay at home and don’t go out. You should get your shopping delivered and not visit anyone, including family or friends, and certainly not go to any social gathering. (Himself self-isolates naturally most days so doesn’t understand what the fuss is about.)
But how on earth can you do that when you’re a dog owner?
How can you take your dog for his daily walks? Should you panic?
Let me tell you a secret.
Don’t panic.
You don’t need to walk your dog every day and you can still keep your dog happy and tire him out at the same time.
Even without Covid-19 about I’ll often recommend clients keep their dog at home and don’t go out for walks. Now stop your huffing and puffing – I’m about to explain why…
Daily outings for reactive dogs are often too much for them to cope with. They become more and more stressed, meaning they start to react more and more, ending up with you taking them for walks at silly times like 5am just to avoid other dogs and people.
If your dog reacts to another dog when out on his walk, did you know it takes between 48 and 72 hours for the huge hike in stress hormones that happens to settle back down to normal?
Think of your dog’s stress like a bucket with a tiny hole in the bottom. Normal is empty. But every time your dog becomes stressed by something – and that can be anything that’s exciting, scary or both – the bucket receives a huge dollop of water. After a few of those the bucket overflows. And your dog turns into a whirling dervish devil.
Because the hole is so tiny, it hasn’t emptied by your next walk, and those stress dollops of water keep getting added – resulting in your dog becoming more and more reactive.
It feels odd not taking your dog out, so you need to know what you can do to help your pooch (and yourself) stay happy and content.
Dogs need exercise, but it doesn’t have to be physical exercise. Mental exercise is far more important and tiring for your dog – about four times more tiring.
Here’s my three-point plan to exercise your dog when you’re self-isolating:
1) Ditch the food bowl
Let your dog get his dinner from a Kong or other interactive toy. You can scatter feed your dog’s dinner in the garden, or a tufty rug or snuffle mat, or hide small handfuls of food around the house for them to seek out and find.
2) Play games
Here’s some suggestions:
– If you’re not too ill yourself, play tug games with your dog. Break up the game by teaching your dog to “drop” the tug, by mixing tug with asking your dog to sit or lie down, or to do any tricks he might know
– Play search games by hiding toys round the house for your dog to sniff out
– If you and your family have the energy, play hide and seek by taking it in turns to hide and let your dog find you – you can celebrate his success with another tug game, too
3) Do some training
How about a 5 minute session teaching your dog a new skill or trick, or practicing a previously learned one?
– You can practice basic recall games such as calling your dog to and fro between you, or teaching your dog to target your hand
– You can practice wait/stay until your dog could rival an obedience champion, or teach your dog to respond to you asking them to sit or lie down when you’re lying down (this is a lot more difficult than you think for many dogs!)
– Practice leave it with a treat or favourite toy on the floor. It takes a lot of energy to resist the urge to grab that tempting reward
There’s other ideas in our free mind stimulation games help sheet on our website along with all sorts of other free stuff. You can find it here.
So if you have to self-isolate, don’t panic – at least about your dog. Enjoy spending quality time indoors with your dog and neither of you will miss your walks.
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Keep training,
Carol