Do I need to constantly play with my dog?
Yesenia Osinski
2025-06-20 14:48:52
Count answers: 5
Dogs don’t just need physical exercise; they also need mental stimulation and social contact. Play is rewarding for us too and interacting with our dogs is a great stress reliever. So, it’s great for your dog, and important for your physical and social wellbeing to play with your dog on a daily basis. Your dog has a lot of natural intelligence that need to be exercised in order to keep them mentally stimulated and prevent them from getting bored and frustrated – and a great way to do this is using their natural desire to find food part of their daily enrichment. Dogs who don’t get mental enrichment or who don’t get an outlet for their natural hardwired behaviours can resort to behaviours you are going to find undesirable – perhaps by chewing the sofa, becoming hyperactive or over attention-seeking, or playing with things you don’t want them to. In other individuals, boredom can cause depression and so they may sleep a lot, lose interest in training and your relationship may start to break down.