Your first question might be: why should I set up an Easter egg hunt for my dog? Will they even enjoy it?
An Easter egg hunt is very similar to popular scent games for dogs, which are usually done by hiding treats around the house or yard for them to find. If you use eggs, you’re also incorporating a small puzzle for them to solve.
Activities like this are very enriching and mentally stimulating for your dog. Dogs love to sniff, and looking for hidden objects works their brains. Learning how to crack open the plastic eggs can also add some challenge to the activity.
Even if your dog isn’t food motivated, they might like the activity itself. Our biggest recommendation is to keep the hunt to the right difficulty level, which we’ll discuss more in-depth below. Too easy, and your dog may find the task boring. Too hard, and they’ll give up altogether.
How to Set Up an Easter Egg Hunt for Your Dog
Now that you’ve decided to set up an egg hunt for your dog, here’s a step-by-step on how to set it up. We also include some important safety tips and tell you how you can make the activity easier or more difficult for your dog to complete, depending on their skill level.
1. Choose the Right Treats
If this is your dog’s first time participating in a game like this, you’ll want to choose high-value treats with a strong scent. This gets your dog amped up and allows them to track the treats easily.
If your dog already loves scent games, you can try some healthier treats or something a bit less smelly so that the game is more challenging.
Of course, you want to avoid human treats like chocolate and sugary candies. These can be toxic or unhealthy for our pups. Opt for store bought dog treats, scraps of cooked, unseasoned meat, or other healthy human foods.
Remember that even on Easter, treats should never make up more than 10% of your dog’s daily calories. Keep the treats small, especially if you plan on hiding a lot of eggs or doing multiple rounds! You can always break them into halves or quarters if needed.
2. Decide What You’re Hiding
Plastic eggs can add to your own enjoyment of the holiday and can make the game a bit more fun for your pup too! It’s like opening up a tasty present, or playing with a puzzle toy.
However, plastic eggs aren’t safe for every dog. If your pup likes to chew and eat things they shouldn’t, you might want to skip the eggs and hide just the treats.
Eggs can also make the Easter egg hunt more challenging, since they mask some of the scent from the treats. To combat this, you can choose eggs with holes in them, leave them partially open, or even hide the treats in just half of the egg.
Make sure the eggs aren’t small enough for your dog to choke on, and never hide chocolate eggs or anything with human candy inside.
3. Find a Location
Next, decide where you’ll host the Easter egg hunt. The best places are inside the house or in the backyard.
The backyard can present more challenges. Wind can throw your dog off the eggs’ scents, and there are more things to distract them from the game. There are also more unfamiliar scents outside that can make things difficult.
It’s generally easier for your dog to track scents indoors, so if it’s their first time, or they find games like this challenging, you may want to hide their eggs indoors.
4. Hide the Eggs (or Plain Treats!)
Like with every other step, you’ll need to adjust the difficulty of your hiding places based on your dog’s intelligence, tracking abilities, and familiarity with scent games. For most dogs, it’s good to have a mix between very obvious placements and more difficult ones.
This way, you can point them to an egg in full sight while they’re still trying to grasp the rules of the game. Once they understand, they can root through blankets, look underneath furniture, and find all of the hidden eggs.
You can also leave some eggs open or cracked to help them sniff out the treats, and learn how to open the eggs on their own.
Be sure to remember where you placed each egg so that one doesn’t get left behind. You don’t want your dog to find it unattended, or to have a rotting treat stinking up your living room in a few months!
5. Supervise Your Dog
Though we’ve already implemented some safety protocols in the previous steps, it’s still a good idea to supervise your dog during their Easter egg hunt. This way, you can make sure they aren’t chewing the plastic, help them if needed, and also make sure they’ve found all of the eggs.
If you’ve closed the eggs completely, it’s best to open them for your dog so that they don’t break the plastic and cut themselves, or choke on the pieces. Another option is to leave them cracked open, or even set half of the egg over the treat so that they can uncover it easily.
6. Clean Up Immediately
You’ll also want to clean up the plastic eggshells immediately. Even if your dog doesn’t typically chew on non-food items, the plastic may smell enough like their treats to intrigue them.
Place the eggs out of reach until next year, or until you want to play again–after all, you can use them year-round if you want to!
7. Set Up Separate Hunts for Each Dog (And Child!)
Now, you’re all done! Or, are you?
If you have multiple dogs, it’s best to set up an Easter egg hunt for each of them individually. This way, you can customize the eggs, treats, and difficulty level to meet their needs. They also won’t be able to steal each other’s treats!
If you have children, you’ll also want to separate their Easter egg hunt so that the dogs don’t get confused and try to eat chocolate or candy made for humans. Make sure to pick up any food, candy wrappers, eggs, and other debris before setting up your dog’s hunt.
Final Thoughts
While there are some safety tips to consider, setting up an Easter egg hunt for your dog can be fun for the whole family. It’s a great way to make sure your dog doesn’t feel left out while seeing your kids hunt for eggs, or for those of us without children to incorporate some magic into the holiday.
You can also use your supplies to set up egg hunts during other times of year, just for fun! Scent games are a great way for dogs to burn off some energy, especially on days they can’t go outside.