Puppy Treat Box Puzzles

Cute puppy alert! If you are easily overcome by canine adorability, this is probably not the post you want to read today. Otherwise, please scroll down to find out why my dog is digging through a frozen breakfast sandwich box.

Normally I wouldn't let our dogs dig through the trash, but in the case it was supervised for their own little enrichment activity. All of the cardboard was stuffed with treats, but I definitely didn't make it easy. Where's the fun in that?

I started saving paper towel and toilet paper tubes a few weeks ago for just such an occasion. Add in a box and some paper packing and you've got several minutes of entertainment. (Theirs and mine!)

Inside the box, which still had its lid for a flap, was a whole host of good things to tear open. I scattered tiny treats across the bottom, then added a layer of packing paper with more treats sprinkled through. On top were six tubes with more treats, and I folded in the ends and creased them closed so the dogs would have to work a little to get them all out. The slightly opened ends let a few fall, just so they knew how to get into them. 

As if knowing what was going on was really an issue. I think they figured it out.

Molly is 125 pounds of curiosity, so she dove right in. When she was a puppy she would shred any piece of paper that hit the floor, and these tubes were no different now that she's a big girl. They didn't stand a chance, and she wasn't even too keen on giving the soggy cardboard back.

Parker was a little more timid. He's very gentle-natured, so destroying something wasn't really in his vocabulary. But the treats smelled so good that eventually he dove right in. After he was finished with the first one, he came to me to get the next one instead of fighting his way into the box.

Then there's our Diesel dog. He is part black lab, part German shepherd, part pit bull, and all bully. Literally. He would have kept the box for entirely for himself and completely destroyed it if we'd let him. We did not. He quickly figured out that there were more treats in the box in addition to the tubes and proceeded to pull out all the paper packing strip by strip. I think some of them flew into the kitchen in his haste, but his brother cleaned up behind him. They make a great team.

I still have enough supplies to make another box for another day, and they're definitely ready for it. What is your favorite enrichment activity for your dogs? And does it involve treats?