[yorkietalkjilly]

Tibbe is now usually bored by toys that don't involve some kind of mental or physical interaction, either with me or a toy he has to work at to enjoy. Regular old squeak toys don't seem to challenge him much anymore and he prefers to be challenged in his play, either by me getting involved with him or the toy being an interactive type one.

I often feed Tibbe his meal using his interactive toys such as putting kibble or moist food in his kong toys - 3 tiny ones usually - and two foraging type game toys, where he has to work to slide a lid back to get his 2 - 3 pieces of kibble inside each slot, some of which might be empty by my choice, to encourage him to use his nose more. By the time he's worked through all of those toys and games, he's "foraged" for his meal which satisfies a basic canine predator/hunter/seeker instinct, had a good romp around the room, used his brain and is full and satisfied in more ways than one. Given the choice, he always chooses to have his meals in the form of foraging toys/games over a bowl of warm food! I've given him a choice of the toys/games on one side of the kitchen vs. his bowl of food on the other and he ALWAYS immediately goes for the foraging way of getting his meal.

Since Tibbe has MVD & IBS and is restricted to prescription food, I make his treats from his kibble soaked in water, cooked to hardness and dried for a day and he works just as hard to those as he does liver treats and considers them wonderful "paychecks" for doing his command or trick right. If your dog doesn't have IBS issues, you could soak his kibble in rich meat broth or soup or whatever to give it extra flavor and then microwave or bake it, dry it and use that for treats. Then he doesn't need as much food for meals as he's getting part of his kibble during the day in his treats.

He loves when I hide a treat, chewie or his squeak ball under a plastic, upside down cup with an empty one about 2 feet away and he has to choose which cup his goodie is under, sometimes with my lead in pointing to the right one and sometimes I leave it up to his nose. I have him turn his back while I'm hiding it and he turns around and bounds toward his choice, knocks the cup over and retrieves his object. He's almost always right in picking the cup with a goodie under it. He'll play that game for as long as I'm willing to keep setting it up.