Never underestimate the the important of mental stimulation for your dogs, especially for your pups. Mental Stimulation goes a long way to preventing behavioural problems in pups and dogs due to boredom. Pups who are bored often become hyperactive and distracted which can manifest into unwanted behaviours like not listening, running around, chewing, barking and digging. Puzzle games or what I like to refer to as basic nose work games, such as those above is a great way to train your pup on focusing on a one activity at a time. It is also a great way of spending quality time with your pup together developing the bond in a fun and easy environment.

Toys such as the one above is great place for little pups to start out with puzzle games  and then they progress to more advanced nose work games. If you don’t have access to to these types of toys, which I can understand, as some people not wanting to spend the money on for one pup/dog who just gets it first and loses interest quite quickly (least we can reuse over and over in each litter) then nose work games can be as simple as the “which hand game” (put food in one hand and get the pup to sniff out when he/she gets excited about one hand open and hopefully he/she has chosen the treat and gets the jackpot if not a smaller reward such as ordinary kibble is good to keep them trying, plus lots of  praise either way) then as u progress you can hide food around a room, in a certain fenced of section of the backyard etc and then once they get really good you could advance to hide and seek (you hide they seek).