Lately I have been running out of things to do with my dutchie Logan. A lot of it has to do with not having a place where he can run and play fetch. During school hours, its illegal to go on the property of a school. After school hours its considered a public park...but here's the catch: This soccer team (not a school team) abuses the privilege. They occupy the entire field until its so dark, you can't see anything. They park in the grassy area that is left. I can't run my dog, other people can't play catch or football with their kids...etc. Only on the weekends we can use the field.

So during the week that leaves me with: biking my Logan on pavement, obedience/tricks/or agility in the backyard...or a boring walk on the pavement. Both of us are bored with this. And a bored dutchie is very annoying. If anyone has any ideas I'd be very glad to have them...as long as they don't involve money, which I have none. I'm frustrated.

How far is it to the outskirts of town? a quiet, dead end gravel road can be a good place to run and play. Any public tennis courts that are empty after dark? we enjoy doing agility on the actual playground equipment itself. I bet the soccer teams make for great distraction during OB Just kidding- How annoying!

Tried tracking?

Or a different park/school for fetch?

Give him a backpack to carry on walks/bike rides, this will help give him a job (plus more energy expended!)

There is always something new to be marker trained.

I don't know how well you know your area but I can hit numerus parks/playgrounds close to place just load up my dog and hit 5 or more within 10 miles.
It's also great for new distractions your dog may perform like a champ at a certain location but it's a different story at a new one, I try not to hit the same old same old place all the time.
I don't know if this like will help you but I have found many places locally I didn't know existed.

http://www.playgroundmapper.com/playmap.aspx?l1=33.6062809&l2=-117.6728185

Do you have any friends who wouldn't mind you visiting with your dog? I take my mutts to my parents, my inlaws and my aunts often...just new scenery is nice.

Are there any office parking garages near you? In the winter when the roads are too bad, I do alot of my walks and training in parking garages after business hours. Footing is good and usually nobody around. I'm not sure if you could play fetch there but having your dog jog up and down the slopes would be good tiring work. And you'd get fit too.

Just no fetch on black top I'm sure you know not a good thing.

I have had two friends doing that and wondered why there dogs feet were bleeding, not the sharpest pencils in the box.

How about tracking/searches indoors? We show our dog a toy to find, put her in a sit, then hide it somewhere in the house. Hiding places can vary by difficulty. If we really want to make her work, we'll hide the toy in cabinets, in drawers, under cushions, under baskets. Some searches take her a good 10 minutes to find. She will actually air track the toy or us so if we just go straight to another room and hide the toy, she'll find it immediately when we release her to search. But, we'll backtrack, with and without the toy, make false trails, and do all kinds of other things to mess her up and it increases the challenge. After about 30 minutes of that activity, she's panting, her tongue is hanging out about 2 feet, and she's pooped. Plus, you combine this with a little obedience training. When she finds the toys location but can't get at it, like in a cabinet, we train here to just sit, pointing at it, until we open up the cabinet for her to retrieve it. Then we party and do it over again.

Thanks everybody :-)

There is a HS campus that is good most of the time. Of the other schools close enough to walk to (I don't have a car) one banned dogs from the campus so I usually don't go there, 2 are way too ghetto and one is a long walk but not a big deal now that its cooling off.

There's a nice open parking lot that's not too far. I don't like exercising him on pavement because of his feet and joints. If I throw a toy he will slide across it (like he's ice skating) when he changes direction, ouch. But its a good place to work with distractions. The parking garage is too far but would be a good idea with the incline...that would be perfect to play "find it"

Hmmm...something new to marker train...I haven't taught him to shake hands, show teeth, or the send away...what else? As for tracking doesn't it matter if the field has had a lot of traffic? I haven't done much tracking with him.

I don't have any dog-friendly places to visit with him accept the hardware store (he does his tricks for them). I'd give anything if I had access to a dirt road where we could bike-jor.

What I think is funny, is I've got an incredibly intelligent dog. He's easy to train, and learns super fast. When out in public recently, someone asked me 'does he do any tricks?'. I start thinking about all the cool stuff he can do. Bark and Hold, Blind searches, focused heeling, tracking, retrieves/jumps over crazy high things...

I've never taught my dog how to shake hands, roll over, spin, or any of the cute tricks everyone thinks all the smart dogs know. Lol.

How many 'dumb' tricks does Logan know? I actually caved recently and bought a trick dog book, just to give me ideas.