Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles!

For those of you who came out to rattifest, you found me working the puzzle plaza. This turned out to be a pretty popular station!  The dogs had lots of fun working the puzzles and humans were able to see how to introduce using a puzzle which was great. As with any puzzle you can't just plop it on the ground and expect the dog to figure it out.

 

Our former foster girl Syncline, now Maddie showing off her puzzle skills!

Our former foster boy Inigo working the maze and I'm guessing that his mom bought him a new feeder!  He really enjoyed working at getting the kibble out of the maze. Inigo is a fast eater and this maze certainly slowed him down.

 

 By far the most popular puzzle was the Dog Twister.  I hadn't worked that much with this puzzle but, now I'm a lover of it!  I like that it's flat (hard to flip) and similar to other Nina Ottoson puzzles your dog can work up from easy to difficult and it's a great confidence booster.

 

Nina Ottosson DogTwister Interactive game
 

 

The buster maze is a great feeder to use with a dog who is leery of the puzzles. For example, my own boy D'light gets pretty worried with puzzles but, he'll work with the maze. The fact that nothing moves (except the food in the maze) I think is what he likes about it. My complaint about this feeder is that it's pretty deep so for a short snouted put, this might not work.

Buster Dog Maze

 

Another popular puzzle was the mushroom! And again it has varying degrees of difficulty which was fun to show and explain to the humans.

Magic Mushroom Pet Toy



 

There were some dogs that were worried about the spinning puzzles, like the Tornado.  But, this star spinner wasn't as scary.  It's shorter than the Tornado and doesn't spin as fast which I think is why dogs liked it.  There was one dog who fell in love with this puzzle and you could see his confidence boost pretty quickly - I'm guessing that sweet boy now has his own start spinner at home!

Kyjen Dog Games Star Spinner Treat Toy


 

The Brick was another great puzzle and it certainly had it's fan base.  One person was stunned when she watched her rattie remove the bones with her teeth. The smile on the human was priceless.    As I told her, never underestimate the smarts of a terrier!

Nina Ottosson Dog Brick Interactive Game

 

It's really wonderful to see so much enthusiasm and interest around the puzzles.  One of the many things that we always go over with adopters is how important it is to keep a terriers mind challenged. Letting folks know that puzzles are one of many ways to do that!

So, next year at rattifest I'm guessing we will have more puzzles to try out and more dogs that are puzzle masters!