Hide Dog Treats in Your Dish Towels

A tired dog is a good dog, and content creators the Wolfe Family have a cheap solution for energetic dogs who want a lot of attention while you’re too busy to play with them. All you need is some dish towels and treats.

Make a DIY dog toy with treats and dish towels

Grab three old dish towels and lay them out flat. Roll each into a tube with a few bits of crumbled-up dog treat inside. Then, take the treat-filled fabric tubes and crisscross them at the centre so they make an asterisk. In between each layer, add another treat crumble. Tie the bottom towel over the X formed by the two on top, repeating with both leftover towels until you’ve created a knot-looking thing. Stuff a few more treats in some outer folds.

Give your fabric ball to your dog, who hopefully spends quite some time sniffing it, batting it around, and generally interrogating it. They’ll loosen some treats and keep going, drawn by the scent of the treats deeper within. At some point, they’ll have consumed all the snacks — and be quite tuckered out.

Sniffing makes dogs tired

According to the American Kennel Club, dogs’ noses have 200 million scent receptors, which is 194 million more than we do, and they sniff five to 10 times each second, which we only do once every 1.5 seconds. Sniffing is a major event for your furry friend and helps them assess their surroundings. It makes them happier and less anxious, too, which translates to less bad behaviour.

It also makes them tired. The Spruce Pets explains that sniffing can really wear a dog out, and that’s to say nothing of the batting and nipping that your dog will do with the treat knot you make.

Your dog may vary (obviously)

You know your dog best, so if they’re predisposed to tearing apart or eating things they shouldn’t, you might not want to try this, lest they eat the dish towel. Try to use towels that are thick and would be hard to rip through, and don’t use any that have existing holes that a hungry, curious dog could exploit. You should still keep an eye on your dog while they play with it, but you’ll get some of your time back, especially after they take a nap afterwards.