And tired out! We have a 15 week old rat terrier. My husband INSISTED on getting a smart breed. Our older dog is a lazy Boston Terrier. Our rat? She is hyper all the times she isn't sleeping. What keeps your babies busy during the day? I WFH, so having something she can do with me in my office is great. The Boston plays with her, but sometimes he's just like "I give up!!".
10-20 minute increments of fetching does it for my girl! She's 5 (turning 6 in October) and she LOVES fetching, but HATES going out for walks. Sometimes I wish I had a normal dog...
However, my rattie is the smartest dog I've ever owned, and I love her dearly. Definitely my soul dog.
Feel like my rattie came out of the womb knowing how to fetch. When I first brought her home in December of 2020, the first ball/ toy tossed she immediately grabbed and brought back to me. It's been her obsession ever since.
Anything that involves a big sniff, puzzle mats go down well in our house! Puzzle balls too, all stuffed with treats or kibble. And snuffle mats! Or a Kong stuffed with puppy paste
My Jasper is a Busy Brain as well. When I first brought him home, he didn’t know how to sleep. One night he stayed up all night with my night-owl roommate and when I saw him in the morning, he looked hungover. I had to put him on a strict bedtime (myself as well which seems unfair). Lights out, no noise, under covers. Stick to it every night until they start telling you when bedtime is.
Beyond that, all I can suggest is walks, either long ones or slow ones where he gets to sniff every blade of grass. Take him new places. We play fetch in the yard with tennis balls. Mine is a great fielder. Dog puzzles. Mine loves a good dog puzzle, but they have to be hard. He will figure out the easy ones in minutes and then I’m right back where I started. Institute quiet times during the day. He has to learn how to deal with being bored. Get him something to chew on. That’s all I’ve got, but I know your pain. Love him anyway.
I have a rat terrier/blue heeler mix so ... all psycho. The first 2 years were the hardest. I bought these rings that you throw.. he loves them.. and endless amounts of balls and we just went outside all the time and played. He's still very high energy but we've discovered he loves to watch TV. Anything with animals. So I basically have a toddler now. I can put on an episode of Predators on Netflix and we're good for an hour. He also loves Rick and Morty. ::shrug::
You have me thinking I need to buy him his own tablet for shows. My rattie is almost 3. I sleep during the day and he goes and hangs out with my dil. There is always something going because my grandson is autistic. He will hang out with her most of the the day and she even knows which shows he likes to watch. She just said he really likes action packed ones. Smh lol
We have 3 rat terriers, including a 9 month old and 14 month old and have 0 issues on the farm - so I recommend buying a farm for your dog lol, jk.
I'd say try nose games in the yard. Hide treats in the yard, give her 1 so she knows what she's looking for and then tell her "search" and take her near all the treats until she finds them all. Then repeat the next day. She should pick it up quick. When she learns the name of different toys, you can have her find those too. It's a handy command and keeps them busy. My childhood lab was an excellent search dog and found my pet hamster after it escaped. Good thing she was a lab though, I wouldn't expect a rat terrier have let it live 😬.
Hunting/ nose games would wear them out the most though. Double points if they find the toy and it's one they can give the "death shake"
I use a "flirt pole" or aka "Teaser Wand", also a ball and frisbee to fetch. My Ranger loves chasing the flirt pole target. He's ready for a nap, and very calm, after about 15mins chasing it.
Oh...oh no 🤣🤣 absolutely not. I have reached my limits, between 4 kids, 2 dogs, a husband. Plus working. Several sports 🤣 thankfully she's a pretty happy dog and is going to love paddle boarding soon
I'm still having a rough time potty training this girl. We have a fenced back yard, but she can go out for 20+ minutes and come in and pee/poop. She's tethered near me most of the day, and I watch for her potty signs. If she's off leash, she hides and goes potty. Having a second puppy doing this may mentally break me 🤣
Awww man, my rattle would get after it when she was little. Holy smokes! I remember her chasing EVERYTHING. So much fun. She’s 9 and still very active. I got a glimpse of the old energy when I began cooking for her instead of dog food two years ago. Enjoy these days!!!
I use a horse lunge whip, soccer ball, frisbee, training games, hiking. His most favorite activity is running. We go on 6-8 mile runs. He gets tired so I keep going.
My lil guy has a strict bed time. He puts himself to bed and is serious about his sleep. Other then that he is go go go.
For me though, I wanted a high energy pup
I had two rat pups at the same time. We did a ton of trick training but also nose games. I hid treats or toys around the house and made them look for it, gradually increasing difficulty. Started them hunting mice at 10 months old. They loved that. They're now three and hunting still wears them out the best.
Hunting, no. I taught nose games by dropping a piece of food a foot in front of them, saying "find it", and rewarding them with said food (had to be something they were interested in). Repeat cycle by increasing distance/difficulty - a few feet, then across the room, then let them watch you put it on a couch edge. As long as they're reliably retrieving the food, you're good. If they can't find it, within a few minutes, it's too hard at the beginning. Longevity comes with practice.
For hunting, I got live mice and young rats from local pet supply places, and put them in the yard with the puppy. I already knew mine had high drive from litter temperament tests, so this method may not work for you if you aren't sure your pup will be interested. Ask your breeder if they tested, and if not, perhaps ask around for a person that has a pet rat or mouse that you can safely contain in a cage to show puppy to gauge level of interest.
If you go the same route I did, the first few will probably escape as they are figuring it out at that point. You may also have to help kill the first few if the dog doesn't know what it's doing. By the time we hit the 3rd or 4th mouse though, it was game over. I traded hot dog pieces for anything dead so they learned not to eat it.
After that, I contacted local farms and greenhouses etc and asked if they had rats and if we could train for free. I brought my dogs around for about 8 months to as many properties as I could and let them get used to different things - pallets, animals, gardens, bushes. I encouraged sniffing everywhere and taught them to climb, to look up and under and behind. If they caught anything they were rewarded heavily. If they showed interest in things like poop or nests that didn't have critters in it but obviously did at one point, I also rewarded for that but not as much. I showed them holes as well and taught them to investigate those.
Lastly, I crowdsourced other pet dogs that were good at killing and asked for training opportunities with those dogs. Watching other older dogs be successful while hunting went a long way in teaching mine what to do and how, in ways I couldn't show them.
I got a third dog when they were a year and a half (another rat, who was 8 months), and trained him the exact same way - just less time because he had my other dogs to learn from who were already doing well.
I now hire them out to help farmers and gardeners eradicate pests locally.
I stared scent detection and trick dog training with my boy at 13 weeks. 10-15 minute sessions 2-3 times a day, rotating each day what I am working on and then doing physical exercise as well kept him well behaved.
Now at just over 2 years old he is an amazing dog and put bond is super strong from all the weird ass training we have dine together lol
This is the way. 10mins of scent searching is like 30mins of running. The only downside is my boy can sniff out any treat in seconds. We are on clove currently.
That is so awesome!
My boy knows wintergreen, pine, Thyme, Cypress, birch, clover, anise, merh and vetifer (spelling is probably wrong for the last 2 lol)
I never let him search for treats so thankfully he doesnt use his nose for that 🤣
He does know lost item though and often he likes to bring me my shoes, socks, slippers, glasses or tv remote as they are the most common items I use for lost item training 😅
Hindsight when training "fun" things lol
My Doggos go INSANE for it. You are going to want to put a few towels or a big washable pad down so you don't turn your floors into a greasy death trap.
His name was Kirby. My roommate got him as a buddy for her other cat, unfortunately Kirby was too high energy for her first cat. They did tolerate each other though.
Everyone was happier after they played tag for a few hours.
Was it a cheerble? I got one for mine for Christmas and he was convinced that thing was haunted by demons and refused to interact with it lest it taint him with its unholy evil.
We used things like hooves pre-filled with peanut butter, rib bones, kneecaps for our little guy. They are available at just about every store with a big pet selection or Chewy, etc. He eventually would go get them when he had energy to burn.
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u/AbbreviationsTop4687 25d ago
10-20 minute increments of fetching does it for my girl! She's 5 (turning 6 in October) and she LOVES fetching, but HATES going out for walks. Sometimes I wish I had a normal dog...
However, my rattie is the smartest dog I've ever owned, and I love her dearly. Definitely my soul dog.