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Fun and Games with your Coonhound

By: Charleston Marie

So you have a wound-up hound? Welcome to coonhound ownership!! Now the question is “how do I ‘unwind’ this hound?” The number one thing to do is to exercise their brains and bodies. Below are some tips of helping that brain unwind.

1. Hunt and Seek – Take their bowl of kibble and toss the contents out in the back yard. This will slow down their eating, and while they ‘hunt’ for their kibble their noses and brains are working hard.

2. Peanut-Butter Bottle – Take a clean and empty LARGE plastic juice bottle –like a cranberry juice bottle – and remove the lid and lid ring. Put some peanut butter on a butter knife and insert it into the bottle and scrape off the peanut butter inside the bottle. Run about a ¼ cup of HOT water into the bottle, cover opening with hand and shake vigorously. Once peanut butter coats the inside of the bottle, drop in a handful of kibble. Shake again so they stick to the inside. Hand over to the hound. Monitor their chewing so they don’t break off or swallow pieces.

3. Paper Monster – get a paper bag and an old newspaper. Take one sheet and put 3-4 kibble in each and ball it up into a paper ball. Put in bag. Repeat. Once bag is full, tape it shut. Hand over to hound or leave out for them to play with. When the hound is done, pay your kid $1 to clean up the paper shrapnel.

4. Scent Game: Hide and Find – Get a pair of well worn shoes of a family member. Have them hide one in the back yard and put the other by the front door. Lead the hound to the one by the door, point to it and say “Look!” then when they get a snoot full, say “FIND!” and then “Where’d they go?!” This also works with finding children…ask your kid to walk from the front door (leaving something of theirs behind) and to walk to their destination place. Wait about 5 minutes and then do the Look! Find! If the hound seems confused or distracted tell to “work it, work through it!” and be very encouraging. Have your kid treat the dog when the dog get’s there and then the association of ‘finding’ and ‘food’ will develop. From there you can do more complicated things with hide and seek.