5 things that help keep a dog entertained on a rainy day indoors

Illustration of Nadia Okafor
By Nadia Okafor
Reviewed & updated 16 August 2026 · 7 min read

Independently chosen — nobody pays to be on a list, and we say what didn't make it. How we pick the 5.

The five, at a glance

1Scatter a whole meal, not a topper2Run a proper find-it round the house3Run a real training session, not a game4Turn the hallway into a gripped fetch run5Space activities out, don't cram them in
1

Scatter a whole meal, not a topper

Scatter-feeding tires a dog out because hunting for food by scent burns far more mental energy than eating from a bowl ever will. Most owners try it once — tip a handful onto a mat as a topper on top of the usual bowl, watch the dog Hoover it in ninety seconds, and quietly decide the mat was a waste of money. The fix that actually holds: it has to be a whole meal, spread across a genuinely large area, so there's more searching happening than eating.

ASPCA — behavioural enrichment for dogs

Try it
Skip the bowl entirely for one meal and scatter the whole portion — kibble, or wet food rolled through oats so it doesn't glue everything down — across the biggest flat space you've got: kitchen floor, hallway, an old towel knotted into lumps.
Start easy with visible pieces for the first few goes, then raise the difficulty — under a folded towel, inside a muffin tin with tennis balls sat on top.
Run it right before you need twenty quiet minutes — a phone call, cooking dinner — it's a built-in occupier, not just an enrichment extra.
2

Run a proper find-it round the house

A proper find-it game — treats hidden round a room, dog sent hunting on a release word — burns through the same mental fuel as a training class, just in far less floor space. Unlike a plain scatter, a structured search asks a dog to hold a stay, wait for a cue, then work methodically, so it layers a bit of impulse control on top of the nose work, which is why five or ten minutes of it can leave a dog properly spent. Dogs habituate fast, so keep the hides genuinely tricky — under a cushion, behind a table leg, on top of something low — because a hunt that's too easy stops being enrichment after a day or two and just becomes snack time.

American Kennel Club — nose work and scent games

Try it
Ask them to wait in one room — hold the collar if the stay isn't solid yet — while you plant eight to ten treats around another room at different heights: on a windowsill, under a rug edge, behind a chair leg.
Release them on one consistent word, like 'find it', and let them work it out themselves rather than pointing to each hide.
Start easy the first time — treats half in view — then hide properly once they've got the idea, and rotate which room you use so the game stays fresh.
3

Run a real training session, not a game

Ten focused minutes of training tires a dog out about as much as a walk does. The mental effort of working through something new is what does the tiring, not the physical movement — it's the one owners underrate most, because it doesn't look like exercise. A dog that's spent ten minutes shaping a new trick or holding a stay through real distraction has done proper cognitive labour, and cognitive labour is exhausting for a brain that isn't used to it.

Try it
Pick something they don't already know cold — a nose-touch to a Post-it on the wall, a new hand-target, or the trickiest version of an old cue — rather than drilling sit and down again.
Keep it short and end on a win: two or three minutes at a time, several times through the day, beats one long slog.
Use their actual dinner as the training treats so you're not stacking extra calories onto a low-activity day.
4

Turn the hallway into a gripped fetch run

A hallway retrieve session can replace a decent chunk of a dog's physical exercise, because the stop-start sprinting is more intense, minute for minute, than a plod round the block. The bit owners get wrong for months is throwing the ball down bare laminate or tile — the dog skids into the skirting board, pulls up sore-looking for a day, and the household quietly decides indoor fetch is 'too risky', when really it's the flooring, not the game.

Try it
Lay a yoga mat, an old duvet, or a hallway runner along the whole throw line, not just where the dog lands, so there's grip at both ends.
Use a soft toy rather than a hard ball for tug, and reward a 'drop' or 'give' cue every single time so it doesn't turn into a keep-away scramble.
Cap it at five to ten minutes in short bursts through the day rather than one long session — a dog wound up after ten straight minutes of fetch is a dog who then can't switch off.
5

Space activities out, don't cram them in

A dog that's overtired from back-to-back enrichment gets wired, not settled, because mental fatigue lowers a dog's impulse control much the way it does in an overtired toddler. The pattern I see constantly on a missed-walk day: guilt kicks in, and the owner runs a snuffle mat, a training session, tug and a food puzzle back to back inside an hour trying to 'make up for' the walk. The evening ends in a spinning, mouthy dog nobody can settle — not because any of it was wrong, just because there was no recovery time between rounds.

RSPCA — dog exercise and environment needs

Try it
Spread three or four short activities across the day, ten to fifteen minutes each, with real downtime — a chew, a snooze — between them rather than one back-to-back block.
Let go of matching the walk minute for minute; a fully missed walk with genuine mental work spread through the day is a fine trade, not a failure.
If the rain breaks for even ten minutes, take a short sniff round the garden or doorstep instead of nothing — it resets the day without needing full wet-weather kit.

What didn't make the list

Expensive electronic puzzle feeders

Most dogs crack the £30-40 gadget in under two minutes once they've learned its one trick, and after that it's just an oddly-shaped bowl with extra washing-up. A scattered meal on a mat or towel does the same job for free and stays interesting for longer, because you can keep changing where and how you hide it.

Dog treadmills

Sold as a rainy-day fix, but a dog needs a proper, patient introduction before one is safe, and left unsupervised or introduced badly it's a real injury risk rather than a shortcut to a tired dog.

Questions people ask

Is it actually fine to skip a walk entirely on a really wet day?

Yes, occasionally — a fit adult dog getting proper mental work indoors for a day or two isn't going to come to any harm. What matters is the pattern: if 'just today' turns into most days, most weeks, the exercise — and the muscle and joint work a walk gives that games don't — needs to go back in the diary.

Is hallway fetch or tug safe for an older dog, or one with dicky hips?

Skip the flat-out sprinting and hard stops on slippery flooring for a senior or big-boned dog, and lean on the sniffing and find-it games instead — just as tiring, without the impact. If you're noticing stiffness, slowing down, or reluctance to play at all, that's worth a vet visit rather than working round it with gear.

My dog just paces and whines instead of settling after all this — what does that mean?

Usually it just means the day hasn't added up to enough mental work yet — add another short round from the list, or get them outside for even a brief burst, rain or not. If the restlessness is new, sudden, or comes with anything else off — pacing that won't stop, heavy panting, not settling even after a proper walk — that's a vet conversation, not an enrichment problem.

Sources

  1. American Kennel Club
  2. ASPCA
  3. RSPCA
Illustration of Nadia Okafor

Nadia writes our Pets lists. She is not a vet — she has shared her home with a rotating cast of dogs, cats and one very opinionated rabbit for twenty years, and fosters when she has room. Her lists stick to the everyday stuff: behaviour, comfort, and the gear that actually earns its place. For anything medical — a limp, a change in appetite, anything that worries you — she will tell you to call your vet, because a checklist is not one. More from Nadia Okafor →

Keep going

Pets5 things that help a dog that's destructive when left alone5 things · 6 min readPets5 things that help a dog that digs up the garden5 things · 7 min readPets5 things that help a nervous dog feel calmer at home5 things · 6 min read

Five things that help, every Sunday.

One list a week, picked by hand.