A Guide to Safe Play Activities for Puppies

Home » Latest news » A Guide to Safe Play Activities for Puppies

Play is fundamental to a puppy’s development, shaping behaviour, confidence, and problem-solving abilities. I am such a firm believer in structured, daily play because it enhances learning, emotional regulation, and social skills, that I wrote my book Playing With Your Dog: Have a Smarter, Fitter, Healthier Dog (Grice, 2010) about this very subject!

However, not all play is beneficial. Certain activities risk overstimulating puppies, which could cause them to get over-excited, unable to settle or create frustration, leading to unwanted behaviours such as excessive mouthing, jumping up, barking, etc.  I liken it to knowing when to leave soft play with my kids – happy cheers can quickly turn to tired tears and upset.  So, striking the right balance is essential.

Healthy, happy playtime incorporates exploratory play, social interactions, and structured learning to support a puppy’s adaptability and emotional stability. So, here is my guide to some play ideas that support positive development while helping to avoid common pitfalls.

---

Engage the Senses

Puppies primarily explore the world through their senses, just like little humans! Activities that encourage controlled sensory engagement help build confidence and problem-solving skills include:

• Texture exploration: Introducing puppies to different surfaces, such as carpets, rubber mats, bubble wrap, and crinkly materials, like the packaging inside delivery parcels, can help build confidence and resilience to novelty. Hide some of your dog’s dried food or treats in and around the items and say “Find it” to encourage exploration in, around, and under them. Ensure you are constantly supervising to keep puppy playtime safe.
• Sniffari walks: This is super easy to do. Scatter your puppy’s food, such as dried kibble/tit-bits, along the ground and say, “Find it”, gesturing to the ground. Use lots of praise as your puppy searches and finds the rewards. Then, as your puppy understands the game, start hiding treats in the grass or under leaves, up lower secure branches, to encourage foraging behaviour. This provides mental stimulation while keeping excitement levels manageable.
• Gentle sound exposure: Playing recordings of household and outdoor noises at a low volume can help puppies get used to sounds that could otherwise be potential triggers for stress, such as sudden and/or usual sounds. This can help reduce the likelihood of noise sensitivity later in life. Playing differing sounds and encouraging gentle exposures to differing experiences needs to be maintained throughout your puppy’s first two years of life for them to learn such things are ‘OK’. Whilst playing different sounds, encourage your puppy to play or provide licking/chewing/biting opportunities directed onto appropriate items, such as lickee pots, Toppls, and puppy-safe long-lasting chews. This enables your puppy to have positive experiences whilst the sounds bubble in the background.

🔴 What to Avoid: Games that involve unpredictable, sudden loud noises, such as popping balloons or banging pots, can cause anxiety rather than build confidence.

Use Toys that Challenge the Mind

Interactive toys encourage problem-solving while preventing boredom and frustration. See below for some ideas:

• Food puzzles/toys: Using food-based enrichment, such as Kong’s, snuffle mats, or treat-dispensing toys, helps enhance cognitive development and reduce anxiety where licking/chewing and biting can help release ‘happy hormones’ and act as a sort of dummy (or pacifier for my USA friends!). Check out my graphic on the Rule of 1/3s for Food to help you be strategic with your puppy’s food. Using this Rule will enable high rates of reward to be delivered to your puppy across the day for all the behaviours you love and want to be repeated. And utilising this Rule also reduces hanger and frustration, which can prompt barking/jumping/grabbing.
• DIY Hide-and-Seek games: Placing treats inside a shallow box filled with crumpled paper mimics natural foraging behaviours. You can also bring the ‘outside in’ by gathering up leaves/grasses/large pine cones, feathers, etc., when you are out and about on your travels, and enable your puppy to have a good sniff and explore of the contents. As always, supervise your puppy and talk to them as you explore the contents together, to maintain safe exploration.
• Training through play: Teaching simple behaviours like hand-targeting or retrieving named objects engages the puppy’s brain while reinforcing useful skills. See an example of hand-targeting in my video below from my Puppy Package (online programme for puppy guardians), and how this can then be used to promote recall, such as the Ping Pong Game.

🔴 What to Avoid: Toys that dispense treats too easily may not hold a puppy’s attention for long, while those that are too complex can lead to frustration if the puppy cannot access the reward. It may be too difficult if a puppy starts pawing aggressively at a toy, whining, or giving up.

Encourage Social Skills

Social play teaches puppies how to communicate and regulate their energy levels. See examples of how you can do this below:

• Supervised playdates: Interacting with well-mannered, stable adult dogs or well-matched puppies helps young dogs develop appropriate play styles. Ensure the dogs have plenty of opportunity for breaks, and watch for any signs of when the dogs have had enough, such as attempts to move away, freezing, becoming more erratic in their movements, head turns away, lip licking and so on. Encourage breaks by pottering around the garden or space and scatter titbits cueing “Find it” so the dogs can be apart, taking in deep breaths as they search out food in one another’s company. This is a great way to promote ‘mooching out’ and learning that they can eat around others calmly. Check out my article for more on matching and mirroring.
• Pattern games: Predictable play sequences, such as structured tug or simple ‘pause and play’ games, create a sense of control and security. For example, Leslie McDevitt’s Up and Down pattern game is a brilliant way to help puppies develop focus, confidence, and emotional regulation in different environments.  Check out the graphic below for more, and practice in different settings so your puppy understands the pattern. Then build in low-level distractions, progressing to mild, etc.,  to help them generalise this skill. This game creates a calming rhythm, helping your puppy stay engaged with you without pressure. It teaches them to check in naturally, making it a valuable tool for reinforcing focus and relaxation in busy environments.

🔴 What to Avoid: Free-for-all play with unknown or mismatched dogs (different weights, sizes, temperament, ages/abilities/health status) can lead to overstimulation and risk escalations such as growling, snapping, etc. If you spot that dog play escalates into relentless chasing, body-slamming, or persistent mouthing, it’s time for a break. Never let the dogs ‘just sort it out’ – be your dog’s advocate and interrupt before things go astray.

Build Confidence Through Play

Puppies benefit from structured challenges that encourage problem-solving without overwhelming them. Some examples of how you can do this include:

• Simple obstacle courses and new environments: Encouraging a puppy to step over low objects, explore tunnels, or navigate small ramps builds coordination and confidence. Similarly, hiring secure fields or going on different walks to potter about can build resilience when you allow your puppy to observe life from afar. Use calming praise, smiling faces, etc., to help puppy move along with you and explore together.
• Novel object games: Presenting safe but unfamiliar objects, such as a wobble board, a platform covered in astro-turf/similar or a shallow tray of water, allows the puppy to explore at their own pace. Avoid luring your puppy around/through these objects if they show signs of worry (backing away, freezing, etc.). Instead, let them move away but leave the items out, and go and play or potter about within the item’s vicinity to take the pressure off. If your puppy moves towards the items or shows any interest, then give them lots of calm, gentle praise and a tit-bit reward, tossed away from the item, to give the additional reinforcement of space away from the ‘thing[s]’ they were initially worried about. This also encourages your puppy to return back to the items, creating a sort of reward loop.
• Tug-of-War: There is a lot of conflicting information about whether tugging should be encouraged or not. I believe having a game of Tug-of-War can be great fun for puppies when played with structured rules. Avoid playing too roughly with your puppy and lifting toys up in the air/ragging their head and body around. Learn to pause before the puppy gets overwhelmed. Start by letting your puppy interact with the toy themselves, telling them they are brilliant, and letting them parade the item around. Then, stroke them and praise them as they are holding the item. Reward your puppy with a tit-bit or gently toss the toy away when they release the item unprompted. This helps teach the puppy that ‘lovely things’ happen when they let go, and hands coming near them when they have an item is not the predictor of you always grabbing the item off them! When played with consideration, tug-and-release games can help build some confidence and help teach impulse control.

🔴 What to Avoid: Never force the puppy to ‘face their fears’ by insisting on interactions with unfamiliar objects or people if they are showing signs of worry. This only serves to increase the risk of long-term anxiety rather than resilience. If a puppy hesitates, allow them time to investigate at their own pace.

Disguise Training as Play

Play provides a natural way to teach important life skills. Here are some quick ways to encourage this:

• Name game: Encouraging a puppy to respond to their name reinforces recall in an engaging way. Start off by saying their name, and when they look at you, mark (e.g. say “yes” or click the clicker) them and then reward them with a tit-bit or something your puppy loves and can tolerate.
• Follow me games: Moving away with a toy or treat encourages a puppy to stay engaged and focused on their handler. Puppies typically love to chase, so this helps them come with you. To avoid the puppy grabbing at your ankles when they get to you, place their reward to the ground, helping them to disengage from you momentarily to retrieve the tit-bit or toy, allowing you precious seconds to also move away to repeat the game. Resist the temptation of playing this for longer than a couple of minutes, to avoid overwhelming your puppy.
• Group classes: Formal puppy training classes can be a great way to build your pup’s social skills whilst learning new behaviours. Ensure you do your homework when choosing your training class. See my article on Warning Signs – When Seeking Training or Behaviour Support. And, if you fancy having fun then check out my Puppy & Dog School for dates/times and availability for Stage 1 Puppies classes – a great way to learn with your puppy, in a safe, friendly and gamified way to maximise motivation.

🔴 What to Avoid: Endless repetitions of high-energy activities like fetch can lead to over-arousal, making it harder for the puppy to settle afterwards. A few rounds followed by a cooldown activity, such as scent work via the “Find its” activity, creates a better balance. Use accredited Animal Training Instructors & Behaviourists that have been rigorously assessed and utilise up-to-date ethical and humane methods. See the Animal Behaviour & Training Council (ABTC) Practitioner Directory for classes near you.

Play Safely: Avoiding Common Pitfalls

While play should be fun, some activities undermine a puppy’s development.

• Overly rough play: Wrestling, rough and tumble or ‘rough-housing’ encourage arousal spikes, leading to frustration and overwhelm, increasing the risk of your puppy jumping/grabbing and biting.
• Repetitive high-impact movements: Excessive jumping, sharp turns, or prolonged running can put strain on growing joints. Avoid using ball throwers which can cause your puppy to skid, slide, and twist around and over-work their joints and muscles, and can also quickly tire them out, risking overwhelm.
• Unsupervised toy use: Weakly constructed toys or those with small, detachable parts pose choking hazards and should be monitored. Avoid giving your puppy baby/child soft toys, as these often contain contents that may have been covered in a fire-resistant coating which can be toxic if consumed by your pup.

Key take-aways

Play is an essential tool for shaping a puppy’s confidence, coordination, and social skills. However, it needs to be thoughtfully structured to avoid overstimulation or frustration. Take a balanced approach, incorporate sensory exploration, problem-solving, and controlled social interactions, and this will help create a puppy that is both engaged and emotionally stable.

Careful play choices help puppies navigate the complexities of their world, setting them up for success in adulthood. For more, check out my book Playing With Your Dog (Grice, 2010), available from most online resellers.