I love Easter, it’s such a fun holiday – but why would dogs be left out of that? Dogs love eggs too!
I always make it my mission to include my dogs in our adventures, that way everyone gets to enjoy easter, whether it’s my dogs, or the neighbour’s kiddos!
We all get a kick out of it, and then you’ve got good dogs too, happy, relaxed and not all that bothered about being a pain during family time.
I am blessed with a fenced acre of land, and plenty of room to do this, but you don’t need a big space to do any of this! Just means you may have to get more inventive.
Most of these are outdoors – primarily because you want to start enjoying the outdoors again, right?!
Easter Egg Hunt
I love to do this, eggs, firstly, are great for dogs so this is a wonderful thing to do, and if you want to make it just a pinch more of the season? You can always use some natural food colouring to achieve some pretty cool colours. Yellow and blue seem to work the best for natural colours, which works really well for dogs vision too.
Hide them in nice little locations, if you have a small dog, you may want to consider quail eggs, and make sure there’s only one or two good quality eggs, depending on the size of your dog, and you can make trails with kibble or natural treats too if you need to!
Read more about setting up a doggy easter egg hunt!
Egg Carton Destruction!
The egg carton from your dogs easter eggs? Also a great opportunity for enrichment, a few scrap pieces of paper (I love the brown paper that comes in packing material!) with treats screwed up into the paper and stuffed into the egg holes.
This one is tidier, easier for indoor easter activities if you’re on poor weather or limited space.
Chicken Neck Hunt
This may be a little gross for some of you, but as someone who has raw fed for a number of years, this really doesn’t phase me anymore.
I literally take some of the chicken necks (usually very cheaply available at your local butcher) and I literally throw them through the yard, randomness is good for this because it means your dog is less likely to predict where they are.
For newer pups on this sort of exercise, you may wish to create more of a trail? Usually as they thaw they leave a good bit of juice – and you can use that to create an artificial trail for your dog to follow
Easter Themed Toppls
I love toppls, they work really well for large dogs, because I can actually feed from these, and without having to fill it a half dozen times.
I’ve been getting creative with recipes, but as a rule of thumb, anything that works for a kong works for a toppl. But I’ve also put together a few pre-done ideas for you that are easter themed too. You can see Shelby tucking into one of them in the picture above.
Combine them!
There’s no harm at all in using various ones of these in like “stations” as part of an extended easter hunt! It’s a good way to keep your dogs really stimulated and using their brain. The more engaging you make it? Chances are the more fun your dog is going to find it!
And when you’ve mentally exhausted them? I promise you your dog is going to sleep through your lavish easter dinner so you can enjoy some family time together.
Want to find more ideas to celebrate with your dogs? Why not check out more seasonal content.
Author, Ali Smith
Ali Smith is a professional, qualified, and multi-award winning trainer is the founder of rebarkable. She has always believed animals deserve kindness and champions force free methods. Believing that dog guardians will all choose the kindest options if proper information is provided, she aims to help all dog guardians who need it and make dog training as accessible as possible
Ali lives win Maryland, US with her husband and her three dogs.
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