Snoopy ponders some of life's tough questions, like "Who am I?" Dogs need mental stimulation too.

Ugh. I'm sick today and have been under the weather for a few days now. I rarely get sick, but when I do, it's usually a doozy, so I'm going back to bed as soon as I write this.

Bad timing, because it's cold and windy outside, too, and I just can't bring myself to take my dogs out for exercise when the weather is like that and I feel like this (miserable). But guilt kicks in quickly. I have six dogs in a small house, and they don't want to lie around sleeping all day without something stimulating to break up that monotony.

Luckily, it turns out that mental stimulation can be just as exhausting as physical exercise, if not more so, for dogs. Anything you can do to get Fido to concentrate will tire him out. This can include interactive toys that make Fido work for food, such as the Kong, the Buster Cube, and the Molecuball; interactive games in which you hide treats around the house for him to find; learning new tricks and tasks, such as how to roll over or how to go get the newspaper; and fun games such as hide 'n' seek.

For my crew today, I chose hide 'n' seek. We played for about 20 minutes, and right now, not a creature is stirring. It worked! And although it was a little chaotic because it was the first time that the foster girls ever played this game, it did have the added benefit of helping to teach them the commands "Stay" and "Come." I'm going to do it again this evening. In fact, I think I'll start doing it every evening, since mental stimulation really isn't optional for dogs any more than it is for us humans. It's essential to a well-balanced, happy dog.

In the words of Norm Schaeffler of Bark Busters, "A mentally stimulated dog is a tired dog and a tired dog is a calm dog. A calm dog is a happy dog and that's what we all want."