Spending Time Indoors with a Playful Dog

If you own a small dog and you let it stay indoors with you for a couple of hours or overnight, you have to spend 100% of your time with it so it behaves. Some dogs act like wild animals in a home and they run from one room to another, biting and destroying everything they find. If you put the dog in a crate, it might calm down, however, it may be pretending to be nice and once you remove the crate, the dog will continue the same outrageous behavior all over again. After a while, this can get frustrating and you might consider just leaving the dog in the crate every time it comes indoors. If you have the time and the patience, you can help your dog act better in your home without locking it up in a crate, which reduces its fun.

The easiest way to stop this behavior is to show the dog you care about it by giving it a hug. This may seem odd, but you are actually holding the dog and restraining it, which keeps it from running through your home. If the dog still tries to get away from you, use a few treats or give the dog a toy to calm it down quickly.

Attention span is also important and a dog's attention is generally very high or low. Knowing if your dog has a high or low attention span can help you. As mention earlier, a toy can keep a dog busy while it is in your home; however, its attention span determines how long it plays. If your dog has a low attention span, when you give it a toy to play with, it will bite it for a few minutes and then find something else to play with, such as your shoe. A dog with a high attention span will play with a toy much longer before it gets tired of it, which gives you time to focus on other tasks while the dog is occupied.

No matter what kind of attention span your dog has, you and your dog should always be in the same room together. If you give the dog a toy and then go to answer the phone in another room, when you return, the dog may be gone. If the phone call is a long one, the dog could easier go to another room, pee or poop and then come back to the toy and you will not know this happened until you find out yourself. This is why it is important to let the dog roam free when you have 100% free time to watch it and if you have to go somewhere else in the house, use the crate until you get back.

A fun game using toys can also keep your dog busy; to play this game, all you need is a few toys for the dog indoors. Get all of the dog's toys and place them in different places within the room so the dog can find them. Once the toys are in your chosen spots, place a treat under each one so when the dog picks up a toy, it will eat the treat and then start playing with the item.

If you let your dog stay in your home, watch it, spend time with it and always use a crate when you exit the room.