Recess Time

When you decide to bring a dog into your life, the unspoken idea is that you’ll do everything in your power to give them the best life possible, within reason of course. That includes potentially paying for a knee surgery that costs thousands of dollars but drastically improves the quality of life for your pet. It also could potentially mean switching food brands to combat an allergy or soothe skin itchiness. 

In some instances, it could even involve getting a pet for your pet to reduce loneliness experienced by some solo dogs. Providing adequate training, correction, and enrichment can also lead to a healthy and happy pup. Our two Terrific Terriers get their enrichment during a phenomenon I like to call Recess Time. 

What is Recess Time, you may ask? Well, I coined the term during the first few weeks of bringing Nala and Sasha home when I would set up an open area where they could play supervised. It was a time when they could wrestle, chew their toys, and flat out get the zoomies to burn off some of that puppy energy. It was, and continues to be, a vital part of managing their activity and moods. 

Puppy Nala and Sasha would get tired and pretty annoyed with being confined in their cages or restricted by a leash wrapped around a door handle all day. They would scream, bark, whine, and even grumble if they didn’t get enough time to run around and play. They needed Recess Time in the mornings and the evenings, and they would usually take a nice, long nap afterwards. The lack of activity also made our training sessions more difficult since their focus usually wasn’t as sharp. They were definitely more concerned about playing with their toys or roaming around the house than they were with completing my commands. 

As they grew older, Recess Time stayed a valuable asset to predict and control their behavior. You could more accurately guess how they would react at any moment’s notice, which was a nice breather from the uncertainty of puppyhood. During their teenage years, Recess Time varied from sprinting around the backyard and tackling each other to running up and down the stairs to even jumping up on their hoomans to get us to play with them. 

In my opinion, this was the hardest stage to manage since they were so fast, so big, and often had one-track minds. They had to learn how to be loose and have freedom around the house. Since they were tied up as puppies until it was time to play, they assumed being loose meant it was time for them to just sprint around and have fun. It was also the time when they tested their limits and often didn’t understand their physical limitations. Thankfully though, there were no seriously injured teenagers. 

And now, let’s welcome to the stage, adulthood. Recess Time for adult pibbles looks a little different than it used to. They prefer to sleep throughout the day and get active in the evenings during our workout time. Usually if we’re jumping around or doing certain moves like punches, we’ll get close to the dogs to rile them up a little. 

Sasha specifically enjoys play fighting, especially with her dad. You can bother her a long time before you start getting on her nerves and she completely walks away from you. She’s also the most vocal of the two and will grumble to let you know how she feels. Nala on the other hand, has a pretty short fuse. She doesn’t like being hit under the chin or things thrown at her. Typically all it takes is one time for her to start barking at you in her high pitched voice. 

Outside of play fighting, we try to keep a decent rotation of toys to keep them entertained. They have constant access to indestructible toys like Kong balls just in case they want to play with them while we’re not home. They have to be supervised with all the toys that could possibly be broken, opened, and swallowed because before you know it, something can turn into a choking hazard real quick. It also prevents fuzz from being spread all over the carpet and potentially eaten.

Their grandmother recently signed up for a monthly BarkBox subscription of toys and treats and it’s definitely been a hit for the twins. I think they can actually tell when a package is for them because they start getting super excited while we’re opening it. Usually the subscription comes with two to three bags of treats and three to four different toys. 

While I cut the tags off the toys, my husband lets them sample the new treats. Every time they get new toys, I usually tell them to sit and wait while I place all the toys on the floor in front of them. We make them wait a second, but then it’s pure pandemonium and joy when they’re able to start playing. They run around, toss the toys in the air, and wag their tails a mile a minute. It’s one of my favorite things to share with them. 

The object of the game is definitely to see who can tear up the toys first, and Sasha tends to win each time. Nala barely gets time to enjoy the toys because her brute of a sister loves hogging them to the point where we have to set up time limits and make them switch turns. They are indeed aggressive chewers. Any toy that’s thin and not reinforced will get destroyed in a matter of seconds. It’s actually quite astounding how quickly they can obliterate a stuffed animal when they put their mind…and teeth…to it. 

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Signed, 

Jessica Marie