What does everyone do to keep their dog excited, happy, and most importantly, tired? I'm looking for ideas for things I can do with my dog when we're both bored and he's bouncing off the walls. These are the things I do with him... any additional suggestions or activities to strengthen our bond and get him worn out would be appreciated...

- Play fetch in the back yard until he starts dropping his toy, usually 3 or 4 sessions of 10 minutes each per day, unfortunately 5 minutes after we go inside he's got his energy back again.

- Walks around the neighborhood (daily, 20 minutes or so, sometimes twice a day).

- Take him to the park and walk the trails (about once every 10 days for an hour).

- Obedience training & drive building with a tug, towel or hotdogs. I usually only need to correct in a "real world" situation, when he knows we're in a training session he does great so I keep it mostly positive.

- Spend a few hours at Pet Beach in Dunedin - it's 2 hours away from me so this is maybe a once a month or every 6 week occurance.

- On-leash at the dog park, its huge and not busy (1 or 2 dogs) at certain times of the day, there's a lake he can splash in and a wooded area with trails to walk in. I try to take him once a month at least, he used to go more often but I got tired of driving 40 minutes to get there all the time so I cut down when he started being trustworthy off-leash in my back yard.

- Chase him around the house.

- Let him chase me around the house.

- Injure myself while running around the house.

- Trips to ER when I run into a wall... lol jk... but I did run into a wall, it hurt.

I have a hard enough time finding things for us humans to do, let alone finding something my dog will enjoy, I'd like him to be more enthusiastic towards me, and try to strengthen our bond (we have a good bond, no doubt about that, but he doesn't show the hyper enthusiasm that I see some dogs have... hyper circling around the handler, jumping up, always wagging the tail, lightning quick reactions and obvious enthusiasm for the reward... my dog has enthusiasm for the reward, he'll try and force the hotdog out of my hand if I close my fingers around it, but he doesn't stand there getting excited and wagging his tail rapidly like I see with some dogs... he's very laid back but has good prey drive, is this just the way my dog will always be?).

The last few days he's had an unusual amount of energy, Ive spent literally half the day with him today and yesterday trying to tire him out, even when he's tired n panting, when I sit down to relax he starts running around n biting at things to get my attention n make me chase him again. He'll go over to my bed n tug at the sheets, or steal magazines off the table, or coasters, or anything else he knows he's not supposed to have. He is usually very defiant and won't listen worth crap when he gets like that, so I just play tug with him to try and wear him out or take the opportunity to do some obedience while he's got the energy and speed. If I don't have time, I lay him down n tell him "calm" n pet him to calm him down. Usually works.

Unfortunately sticking him in the back yard doesn't do much, he won't run the fence... well... there is no fence... but he won't run on his own, in the morning he chases dragonflies around the yard, but other than that, unless im running with him or throwing something for him to retrieve, he just sits down or walks around sniffing the grass. He used to run around with my friends doberman and it did a great job of tiring him out, but the doberman has become too aggressive in his play for my liking so I don't let them play anymore.

So to summarize my probably un-necesarily long post... looking for energy consuming fun activities, things to build enthusiasm and quickness in his obedience, things to make him run in the back yard that don't involve retrieving and doesn't require much or any physical activity on my part <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Swimming?

Mine is still a puppy (5 months old today) and the things I try to do to make him busy are:
Take him for about 20 min walks around neighborhood about two times a day.

Walk the trails on different parks 2 times a week.

Play with him on my backyard every day about 2 hours. (He chasing me, me chasing him, tug of war)

Train him the basic comands, everyday. He has so much food drive so he is always alert for every command and do anything I ask him. Its amazing, if I don't have any treats he would listen to comands but not with enthusiasm, whereas when I have treats he would obey with a lightning speed.

Take him to a class every week about 2 hours.

When we do all these things together he has so much energy, but if I work on my yard and not pay attention to him he would play with his toys for few minutes than he would just lay around in the grass streching would come at me showing interest on what I'm working and making it very hard for me to do any work on my yard.

I have not tried letting him swim yet but thats something that I plan to start doing preety soon.

I started playing fetch with him but than on Ed's video puppy 8weeks to 8 months said that it is to hard of a game for growing puppies.

Grab a tug and roll around on the floor with the dog and act retarded <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Nothing beats it!

Our dogs love when we blow bubbles for them. Depending on your dog's age you may want to be careful of how much jumping they do to catch the bubbles. Another thing that works to wear them out is a letting them chase a laser light. This wears my dog out but also gets him hyped up. After doing the laser light I give him a few obedience commands to calm him back down.

My terriers get to kill rats, moles, squirrels and stuff. My GSD gets to bite folks. This IS a working dog forum, RIGHT?!?

Tracking, obedience and protection.

Working dog forum yes... but all work and no play make jack a dull boy. Waiting on my first steps to bite training DVD so I can progress to that from the Building Drive & Focus DVD.

Swimming I will try today per the instructions in my other post. Lazer light, I have one, I used to do it, but I felt so bad for the lil guy cuz he'd spend literally 20 minutes lookin for the red dot after it was gone.... it was so sad that I stopped LOL.

I thought the Sch club might be a good activity to get him into a different setting once a week, but I've decided to work him at home as far as I can without a helper before going back... and the 150+ mosquito bites I picked up on Tuesday weren't that great an incentive either.

I'm being barked at, I better go let him pee. Maybe he'll enjoy swimming one of these days n I can go play fetch by a lake when he realizes he can go deeper than chest high.

How about training him to pull - or at least, go along with your bike. You have to be carefull of temperatures, but on cooler days or early in the morning I have been able to get in some short scooter runs. Or you could do a little weight-pull training in your back yard. Cart training. In the hotter temps we have been having my dogs have been doing some heavy duty earth moving (digging big holes - i get my exercise filling them in). You could put a few obstacles(jumps, a-frames, ramps, tunnels) in your back yard and do some "confidence course" training.