13 Random Things To Do With Your Dog When You’re Bored

Bored? Have a dog? Here’s 13 things you can do to pass the time.

Trim Her Nails

Most of us do not trim our dog’s nails often enough.

I personally do it monthly, but doing them more often keeps them in better shape, that way your dog doesn’t have to have uncomfortably overgrown nails at any time.

Pretty soon I’m going to do a post series on trimming your dog’s nails with minimal stress. For now, my biggest tip is to use a Dremel rather than a nail clipper. It greatly decreases your chances of hitting the quick and drawing blood. Dull nail clippers can painfully crush the nail instead of making a clean cut.

Pretend To Lick Her Like You’re Her Mom

There’s no rhyme or reason to this exercise, it’s just something I like to do. Make sounds with your mouth to imitate the sound of licking while your cuddle, nuzzle, or pet your dog. I like to think it reminds her of being a tiny puppy being cleaned by her mother.

Expand Her Vocabulary

Try narrating different things in your dog’s life just to teach her new words.

Does your dog know “breakfast time”? How about “dinner time”?

How about “I’m going to the kitchen?” or “I’m going to the bathroom”?

Not every word your dog knows has to be about food, a trick, or a skill. Teaching your dog more words helps her listen to you more closely. And when you’re cooped up indoors, talking to your dog is good for your brain, too.

Find Creative Ways To Serve Dinner

Ditch your dog’s bowl and scatter her food across her placemat.

Or, try feeding her out of an old cupcake tray.

Hide her food in a modified cardboard box, an old folded towel, or some toilet paper rolls, stapled at both ends with holes cut into the middle.

Play Hide And Seek

Hide and seek can be used to teach and refresh stay and recall skills, and it’s fun to watch your dog’s mind work while you peek out from your hiding spot.

Take A Lion King Picture

Have someone take a photo of you holding your dog up like Rafiki holding up baby Simba on Pride Rock in the Lion King.

Teach Your Dog A New Language

Reteach all of your dog’s cues in a new language.

Brush Your Dog’s Teeth

Brushing our dog’s teeth is another thing that hardly anyone does often enough.

If you do not have dog toothpaste at this time, coconut oil can work too. If you don’t have that, a paste made with baking soda can work, but it won’t taste so good, so your dog might not allow it.

Even brushing with a clean toothbrush will help remove plaque if you don’t have anything else to use. Never use human toothpaste, as it is not meant to be swallowed and often has artificial ingredients like xylitol that are poisonous to dogs, even in small amounts.

Teach A New Trick

Most of the tricks in my Teach Your Dog Tricks section can be done using materials around your home, or just a few treats and some patience.

Make Up A Song Or Poem About Your Dog

Because doesn’t every dog need a theme song? You can also make up a sleepytime song that you can, from here on, sing to your dog every time you tuck her in.

Make Art With Your Dog

You can teach your dog to paint, but if your dog is not yet ready for an advanced trick like that, you can just dip their paws in paint (water-based or tempura is easiest to clean), or…

You can dab paint onto a canvas, cover it in plastic wrap, and smear peanut butter on top. As your dog licks the peanut butter, their tongue will create designs in the paint.

You can also create art from your dog’s silhouette. Just tape some paper to a wall, cast your dog’s shadow on it with a lamp, and encourage her to stay still while you trace her shadow onto the paper.

Become A Doggy Masseuse

Learn Tellington Touch techniques so you can use the power of touch to help relieve anxiety, poor digestion, and chronic pain. Many of these techniques are demonstrated on YouTube.

Have A Fashion Show

Bring out all of your dog’s collars, dresses, sweaters, and accessories and take photos of them while your dog walks down a makeshift runway.

If your dog doesn’t like being dressed, this could be stressful for her, so you may want to limit it to just a few outfits and keep the treats coming.

Lindsay Pevny lives to help pet parents make the very best choices for their pets by providing actionable, science-based training and care tips and insightful pet product reviews.

She also uses her pet copywriting business to make sure the best pet products and services get found online through catchy copy and fun, informative blog posts. She also provides product description writing services for ecommerce companies.

As a dog mom to Matilda and Cow, she spends most of her days taking long walks and practicing new tricks, and most nights trying to make the best of a very modest portion of her bed.

You’ll also find her baking bread and making homemade pizza, laughing, painting and shopping.