8 Ways to Play with a Puppy (Indoor & Outdoor) +Play Bite Tips
You know your puppy is going to want to play every day.
One of the best ways to bond with your puppy is to be the favorite playmate.
Play is essential for your puppy’s development and is how your puppy learns about the world, your home, your family, and how to behave in its new home.
So, how can you play with your puppy – indoors and outdoor?
And do you encourage proper play behavior?
Why is Puppy Play Essential?
Play is essential for your puppy because play is:
- Excellent exercise – you don’t want to overdo it while your puppy is developing, but play is a fun way to get some more physical activity.
- Bonding – when you play together, you start to learn about each other and develop affection and understanding.
- Mentally stimulating – play allows your puppy to flex its brainpower and muscles, and puppies love solving puzzles.
- Socializing – play is where your puppy learns acceptable behavior – don’t bite or play too roughly because your playmates don’t like it.
- Fun – your puppy is an intelligent, social animal and needs something to occupy its brain and soak up its excess energy. Your puppy may sleep a lot, but it wants to play when awake.
- Training – some play sessions lay the foundations for future training sessions to obey commands. If you do it right, your puppy will probably see training sessions as play sessions.
What Puppy Games Work Indoors?
There are plenty of games you can play with your puppy indoors that will keep both of you entertained and busy.
1. Seeking and Finding
Hiding toys or treats allows your puppy to develop its tracking and hunting instincts.
The “hidden” object must be important to the puppy, so a favorite toy or treat works well.
Start by letting your puppy see you place three or four treats around the play area. Then encourage your puppy to seek them out.
You can use a command word like “find” or “seek.”
When your puppy locates a treat or toy, make a fuss and praise it.
Once your puppy has the hang of this game, you can make it more challenging by hiding the treats under toys or furniture, and you can have the puppy in a different room while you do the hiding.
Most puppies enjoy snuffling out treats but retrieving, and working dogs really enjoy these types of games.
You can buy puppy toys that allow you to hide treats or make your own interactive puppy puzzles – try using a few paper cups to hide a treat, or for the more demanding puzzle, try the muffin tin and tennis ball approach.
Hide a treat or two in a muffin tin and cover all the holes with a tennis ball.
Your puppy needs to locate the treat and lift the tennis ball to find it.
It may take your puppy a few tries to get the hang of this game but try timing your puppy to see how fast it works out the way to access the treat.
2. Pulling and Tugging
Some puppies enjoy pulling and tugging a toy with someone else “fighting” back.
This game requires active participation because puppies are not interested in pulling at a toy fixed to a post.
The puppy wants you to play with it and shake the toy, and when you release it, the puppy feels that it has “won.”
The tugging game is one that puppies will play together, and it can get quite boisterous.
3. Catch and Fetch
As an inside game, ensure you use soft balls that won’t damage the furniture or windows if you mistime your throw or the toy bounces off the puppy.
Some puppies enjoy the chase, and some will also bring the toy back so that you can throw it again.
Herding and retrieving breeds enjoy catching soft balls in the air and chasing after them to return them to their playmate.
Some breeds like the terrier are happy to chase the ball but not bothered about bringing it back.
This breed finds the prey but expects you to come and deal with it.
4. Obstacle Courses
A fun game for your puppy is navigating (with help and encouragement) around, under, and over small obstacles.
Cardboard delivery boxes are excellent for building safe and fun play areas for your puppy. You can turn them into tunnels and stuff them with cushions to make the pack an obstacle to climb or jump.
Although a challenging course is fun, make sure the obstacles meet your puppy’s capabilities and size.
If you prefer to buy your puppy toys, add a tunnel into the mix.
5. Hide and Seek
If you are in a safe enclosed space with places to hide, you can play hide and seek with your puppy.
Your puppy is always the seeker because it uses its natural instincts to track you down wherever you are hiding.
It will never occur to your puppy to hide from you and expect you to come and find it.
Make sure you have some treats in your pocket to reward your puppy for successfully finding you.
What Puppy Games Work Outside?
All the games you can play inside work outside as well, but with more space and less worry about damaging furniture, you can add in some other games:
6. Chasing Games
Your puppy may enjoy running away with a toy and you chasing after it.
Your puppy will also enjoy chasing after you when you run away with a toy.
This game is quite energetic, so keep the session short to a few minutes of chasing and running to avoid overstretching your puppy’s developing body.
7. Outdoor Agility
An outdoor agility course is an obstacle course with more room to run and jump – an excellent way to play with your puppy without toys.
Many adult dogs (and people) enjoy outdoor agility games and competitions.
Your puppy isn’t in that league (yet), but your puppy will enjoy learning to jump through hoops and navigate through other obstacles.
An agility course is fun for you and your puppy if you have space for a whole system or fun with just a hoop or tunnel.
8. Water Play
Your puppy can’t learn to swim until around six months, but all puppies enjoy messing around with water on a hot day.
You can buy splash toys for your puppies that provide all the fun of a sprinkler and are safer than a deep paddling pool as there is little risk of drowning on a sprinkler pad.
Don’t leave your puppy unsupervised when playing with water, and ensure that your puppy doesn’t get too chilled.
When playing with your puppy, have fun but play safe.
How Much Play Time Does Your Puppy Need?
Play sessions count as physical exercise, and the issue with overdoing physical play is that you can harm your puppy’s long-term health.
Your puppy’s bones don’t fully develop until around fourteen months of age.
The activities that need caution are:
- Physical exercise like running and walking.
- Jumping.
- Running up and down steps.
The approach to all structured physical activity is that your puppy can have five minutes per month of age – preferably split into short sessions throughout the day.
For example:
Your puppy at four months can have a maximum of twenty minutes, and you could split this into four five-minute sessions involving either a walk or playing a physical game.
When your puppy matures as an adult dog, it will need anything from thirty minutes to two hours per day, depending on breed or size.
For your puppy, little and often is the best approach to feeding and exercising.
Your puppy needs a lot of sleep in the early days, and although it wants to be with you, not all the time you spend together needs physical activity.
Your puppy will enjoy quiet time as much as playtime.
When is the Best Time to Play?
The best time to play with your puppy is when he is awake and alert, but your puppy will appreciate a regular schedule and may have more energy in the evening before settling down to sleep.
Potential play sessions include:
- Morning as part of the first potty break and before breakfast – an enthusiastic morning greeting helps start the day off right for your puppy and forge a lasting bond with you.
- A short walk or play session after breakfast and before the morning nap.
- Middle of the day potty break and play session.
- Mid-afternoon potty break and play session.
- Evening walk and possible play session before settling down to sleep through the night.
Every time your puppy is awake does not have to be a physical play break, and your puppy can have a potty break without indulging in physical play, and you can interact with your puppy without exercise.
What About Puppy Play Biting?
Puppies explore the world with their mouths and haven’t learned not to bite.
Mouthing and nibbling human fingers is a phase that most puppies stop between three and five months.
Puppy teeth are needle-sharp, and it is instinctive to squeal when you experience a surprise bite, but this reaction suggests to the puppy that you are enjoying the biting game.
How to Play without Encouraging Biting?
Don’t encourage biting your hand; it may seem cute with a small puppy, but your puppy will grow much bigger teeth, so if your puppy starts biting your hand, offer a more acceptable chew toy than fingers as a distraction.
Don’t shout at your puppy.
It won’t understand why you are angry, and you can hurt your trust bond.
If your puppy starts biting and is unwilling to accept a substitute for your fingers, stop playing. It will only take a few minutes for your puppy to calm down.
When your puppy is teething, offer plenty of potential chewing objects – a frozen fruit or frozen face cloth is cooling for hot and aching gums, but you can get teething toys to help your puppy get through this phase.
When you play with a puppy, offer toys to play tug – if your puppy needs to use its teeth, direct it to an appropriate toy.
How Not to Play with Your Puppy?
All puppies are fragile, and you need to avoid rough games that encourage a puppy to jump with the potential of breaking a leg or hurting itself.
Your puppy has little awareness of its body’s limitations at this stage, and it may try to jump from a sofa or the stairs with disastrous consequences.
Don’t play for too long – about five minutes per age month is your puppy’s entire exercise allocation for the day. Your puppy needs to sleep, eat, and hydrate regularly.
Keep playtime short.
Don’t give your puppy unlimited access to all the toys.
You may want to let your puppy have a chew toy when left alone or in a crate but treat the toy collection as a library – you borrow the toys for a short time.
Producing the toy as a surprise and rotating through the toy selection keeps your puppy interested in playing.
Try not to overexcite your puppy by squealing and jumping around.
If overexcited, your puppy is more likely to knock things over or get injured.
Don’t make every play session a training session.
Training games are fun for your puppy, but no one needs to be in school all the time. Mix up your games with challenging puzzles, learning new tricks, and have fun for no reason at all.
Avoid areas with hazards – it seems obvious, but playing catch when your puppy can fall into deep water is not sensible.
Inside, you need to be aware of trip hazards and objects that can fall and break.
Before starting a play session, do a brief mental risk assessment – ask yourself if there is anything that can damage or hurt your puppy.
Don’t play with your puppy immediately after a meal or a lot of water – give your puppy time to settle down and digest its meal.
Be sensitive to your puppy’s need for bathroom breaks.
If your puppy gets involved in a game, it may forget to indicate that it needs to go outside, so you may want to give your puppy a bathroom break before any indoor play session.
Make Time for Play Everyday
Playing is good for you and your puppy.
Humans and dogs retain the capacity for play for life, and it is an essential way for you and your puppy to interact and form a strong and loving bond.
A play habit helps you and your puppy stay mentally agile and younger for longer.
Plus, it is fun.