A washed-out walk is not the disaster it feels like at nine in the morning with a dog staring at you. Sniffing and problem-solving tire a dog in a way that distance alone does not, and most of what follows can be done in a hallway.

Make them work for breakfast

Tipping breakfast into a bowl uses up ninety seconds of a dog’s day; the same food in a puzzle feeder, a snuffle mat, or simply scattered across a towel can take twenty minutes of concentrated work. If you own nothing designed for it, a handful of kibble thrown into a folded blanket does the job. Frozen food inside a rubber toy lasts longer still.

Use the nose properly

Put the dog behind a door, hide five treats around one room, and let them find the lot. Make it harder each round — behind a chair leg, under an upturned cup. Fifteen minutes of this leaves most dogs genuinely ready to sleep, which is not something you can say for fifteen minutes of fetch in the corridor.

Five minutes of training counts

It is the cheapest thing on this list. Teaching something new — a chin rest, going to a mat, finding a named toy — works a dog’s brain hard. Keep sessions short and stop while the dog still wants more.

Watch the floors

Hard floors and fast turns are how dogs pull muscles. Keep the running games on rugs or carpet, save fetch for outdoors, and choose sniffing and thinking games for the corridor instead.

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