Ten Games to Play With Your Chihuahua That Actually Land

My chihuahua, whose name is Pepper and who weighs three pounds in winter and two-point-eight in summer, has reviewed every dog game ever invented. The reviews are short. Most are negative. The tennis ball was rejected on contact, by which I mean she walked over to it, looked at it for nine seconds, and walked away. She is not a tennis ball dog. (She is also not a frisbee dog. She is, as far as I can tell, not a dog who is willing to chase anything that is bigger than her own head, which rules out approximately ninety-eight percent of the dog-toy aisle at the pet store.)

Two years and one binder of failed experiments later, ten games survived. They are all small. Most of them happen on the carpet. None of them require a yard. Some of them have produced what I will, with apologies to Pepper, describe as joy.

The Five Indoor Games That Actually Work

1. The Muffin Tin Game

Treats in a few cups of a muffin tin. Tennis balls covering all twelve cups. The dog noses the balls aside until she finds the food. (You may not have a muffin tin. I did not, until this. I now own one.) Pepper figured this out in approximately four minutes; she has been playing it for two years; she has not gotten bored of it once, which is more than I can say about most television.

2. Hide and Seek

Tell the dog to stay. Go hide. Call her. The dog finds you. Pepper conducts this search in the manner of a small detective, room by room, nose to the floor, with the air of someone who is personally offended that you would do this to her. The first time we played, she found me in approximately twelve seconds. The second time, twenty. By the fifth round she had developed a preferred order of rooms (kitchen, then living room, then bedroom), which I find deeply concerning and also slightly flattering.

3. The Cup Shuffle

Three cups. One treat under one of them. Shuffle. The dog picks. Pepper gets it right roughly eighty percent of the time, which is significantly better than I do at the same game, which I find embarrassing.

4. Treasure Hunt

Hide treats around the room while the dog watches. Then release the dog. (This is functionally just an elaborate kibble-delivery system, but the dog does not need to know that.) A chihuahua working a room with her nose, deliberately, with a small to-do list of locations she remembers from when you were placing the treats, is one of the funniest things you will ever pay rent to watch.

5. The Living Room Obstacle Course

Couch cushions. Cardboard boxes. A blanket draped between two chairs. You guide the dog through with a treat in your hand. Pepper completes this course at a speed that, scaled for size, would be approximately equivalent to a Labrador running a 4:30 mile, which is mostly a comment on chihuahua leg-to-body ratio and not on her actual fitness.

The Brain Games That Wear Them Out Faster Than a Walk

A bored chihuahua is loud. A bored chihuahua barks at the molding, the ceiling fan, the legitimate ghost in the closet. Ten minutes of focused brain work flattens her like a thirty-minute walk does. (I have done the controlled experiments at home. The tail-wag-per-minute decay rates are conclusive.)

6. The Name Game

Teach the dog the names of her toys. Pepper now knows seven, including "hedgehog," "crinkle," "blue rope," and one she has named herself, which is the small purple seal she will retrieve only when I say the word "purple," and which is the only toy on which she has demonstrably better recall than I do.

7. The Which Hand Game

One treat in a closed fist. Both fists out. The dog picks. (This is a game of pure attention. It also doubles as an excellent metric for whether the dog is actually paying attention to your hands or to the small sound your refrigerator makes when the compressor kicks on.)

8. Puzzle Toys

The Nina Ottosson small-breed line is the gold standard, and I am putting that on the record because I have tried three other brands and they were either too big or constructed in such a way that Pepper, in approximately thirty seconds, achieved what I can only describe as a hostile takeover. Rotate them. (A puzzle the dog has memorized is a slow feeder. They know the difference. They are not impressed.)

Two Active Games That Are Sized Correctly

9. Chihuahua-Sized Fetch

A mini squeaky ball, not a tennis ball. Across the room, not across the yard. Pepper will fetch four times. Five is too many. (I have tried five. The fifth throw is met with the kind of look I associate with people whose flight has just been delayed for the third time.)

10. Gentle Tug

A thin rope or a strip of fleece. Not a braided rope built for a Labrador. Let her win. Mostly. The AKC tug-of-war guide has the rules; the only one that matters is to stop if the body goes still. Still is the new growl.

Three Things I Wish I Had Known Sooner

Five to ten minutes per session. Not more. Two short sessions in a day beat one long one. End while the dog still wants more, not after she has lost interest, because the dog who has lost interest is the dog who will refuse to play that game ever again, which is how I lost frisbee, balloon, and one specific squeaky pig forever.

Use treats that only come out at game time. PetMD reminds us that treats should stay under ten percent of daily calories, which on a three-pound dog is roughly the size of one molecule, so break them small.

If a game does not land in three or four real attempts, abandon it. Not every game will land. Pepper has, to date, refused tug, frisbee, balloon, the laser pointer, the small parachute thing my niece bought her for Christmas, and any toy that squeaks at a frequency she has decided is "sarcastic." The dog has standards. The dog will not be moved.

For the bigger picture on what makes the breed tick at home, the field guide on twenty-five chihuahua facts is worth a read; if your dog is actually showing nervous behaviors during games rather than playful ones, the explainer on reading nervous signals is the place to start.

If your chihuahua is currently judging your fetch technique, browse more chihuahua field reports or subscribe for the next dispatch.