Now, dogs can play board games to stay mentally fit

One of the main problems pet parents face is that when their dogs get older, a lot of physical games will not be feasible with them anymore. Two pet parents, Freya Rehman, who has five dogs and Preeti Narayanan, who has 11 dogs, also faced the same situation. They found it difficult to give individual attention to their pets. So, to spend time with them separately, the duo came up with handcrafted wooden games for pets.

“This needs the participation of pets and their parents. It’s a wooden board with cylindrical-shaped holes with pegs that fit these holes. The concept of the game is that you can hide a treat randomly in the cavity under these pegs and the dog should find the treat by removing the pegs,” says Freya.   Living with a dog is such an ego boost. To them, you are the centre of their existence and they want nothing more than to just be with you. “In the process of caring for them and trying to figure out our own lives, we don’t have the time, patience or energy for much more than a pat on the head or a cuddle while watching the tube. It is when we failed at this in our own lives that we started to think of how to fix it. Our dogs needed more from us and we needed a way to figure this out. We have tested these products on our dogs first — they thoroughly enjoyed playing it and that’s when we decided to commercialise the products through our website Happy Tailz Games,” she adds.

The duo has designed and developed six different games that can be played by any breed of dogs belonging to any age category. “If it’s a multi-dog household, such games help pet parents to spend one-on-one time with the dogs instead of having them compete for attention. What we have understood is that ten minutes of playing this game are almost equivalent to one hour of walking as it gives a physical and mental workout to the dog,” Preeti tells DT Next.

For every online order they receive, the duo looks at the information about pets like their breed, age, behaviour pattern and so on. “If we think that the game they have chosen is not suitable for the dog, we reach out to the customers and give suggestions,” shares the entrepreneur.