By Maya & Leo | The Dog Psychology Podcast | cattledogbuch.com
So most people get this exactly backwards.
They know the dog struggles when they leave. So, the logic goes, let’s burn off the energy first. A big mad game of fetch in the garden. A frantic tug session. Really tire them out, so they’re too knackered to panic.
And then they leave, and the dog panics anyway. Often worse.
Here’s the thing they didn’t know.
A dog who’s just been wound up to the eyeballs with a high-octane game isn’t calm. They’re revved. Heart pounding, adrenaline up, brain buzzing. You haven’t drained the tank. You’ve filled it. And then you’ve walked out the door and left all that fizzing energy with nowhere to go.
What an anxious dog actually needs in the ten minutes before you leave is the opposite of excitement.
It needs to come down. Down off the ledge. Into the calm, sniffy, licky, settled state where the body switches off its alarm systems all by itself.
So these aren’t hyping-them-up games. These are wind-down games. The kind that flip a dog from “alert” to “ahh.” Ten minutes each. Cheap or free. Do one before you head out and you hand your dog a softer landing.
1. The Scatter Hunt
This is the simplest one, and honestly it might be the most powerful.
Take a small handful of your dog’s kibble or a few little treats, and scatter them across the floor, the carpet, the lawn, somewhere they have to sniff to find each piece.
That’s it. That’s the whole game.
Why it works: sniffing is to a dog what a long, slow exhale is to us. The act of searching with the nose physically lowers a dog’s heart rate and drops them into a focused, meditative state. It’s not a metaphor: sniffing genuinely calms the nervous system. Ten minutes of nose-to-the-floor searching does more to settle an anxious dog than an hour of fetch ever could.
Scatter the food, walk away, let them work. By the time the last piece is hoovered up, you’ve got a calmer dog.
2. The Snuffle Mat (or the Tea-Towel Version)
If the scatter hunt is the starter, this is the main course.
A snuffle mat is just a mat of fabric strips you hide food in, so the dog has to root around and snuffle each piece out. You can buy one for a few quid, or make the free version in thirty seconds: lay a tea towel flat, sprinkle treats along it, then roll it up loosely or scrunch it into folds. Hand it over and let them unpick it.
It’s the same magic as the scatter hunt, sustained, problem-solving sniffing, but it lasts longer and asks a bit more of the brain. And a dog that’s been gently puzzling over a tea towel for ten minutes tends to flop down afterwards, satisfied and sleepy, rather than wired.
Perfect for the run-up to a departure.
3. The Lick Mat
If sniffing is a slow exhale, licking is a thumb on the brain’s calm button.
Repetitive licking releases calming signals in a dog’s body and soothes them in a way almost nothing else does. So smear something soft and tasty across a lick mat: a thin layer of dog-safe peanut butter (xylitol-free, always check the label), a little wet food, mashed banana, plain natural yoghurt, and let them work at it.
Want it to last even longer? Pop the smeared mat in the freezer for an hour first. A frozen lick mat can buy you fifteen calm, focused minutes.
The bonus here is huge: a lick mat is one of the few of these you can actually leave down as you go. A dog that’s busy licking as the door closes is a dog whose brain is occupied with something soothing at the exact moment it would otherwise start to spiral.
4. The Stuffed Kong
The classic, and a classic for a reason.
Take a rubber Kong (or any tough hollow chew toy), stuff it with something that takes effort to get out, and let your dog go to work. Soaked kibble, a bit of wet food, mashed banana, a smear of peanut butter: pack it in, and for the harder mode, freeze it overnight.
The point isn’t the food. The point is the work. The slow, methodical chewing and licking and problem-solving keeps a dog occupied and calm, and like the lick mat, it’s something you can hand over right as you leave. You’re swapping the moment of panic for a moment of focused, contented effort.
Build it into your exit: Kong appears, you quietly go. Done often enough, the Kong itself starts to predict calm instead of the door predicting dread.
5. The “Find It” Box Game
Last one, and it’s lovely for a rainy day when you can’t get into the garden.
Grab a cardboard box, or a few. Toss in some scrunched-up paper, an old tea towel, a loo roll, anything safe to rummage through. Hide a few treats in among the mess. Then let your dog dig, nose, and rummage their way to the prize.
It’s foraging, the most natural, satisfying thing a dog’s brain can do. It engages the nose, asks the body to slow down and problem-solve, and leaves a dog feeling that quiet, accomplished tiredness that’s completely different from the jittery exhaustion of a hard run.
Cheap, endlessly repeatable, and you can build the difficulty up as they get the hang of it.
The One Rule That Ties Them All Together
Notice what every single one of these has in common.
The nose. The slow problem-solving. The licking, the snuffling, the searching. None of them are about speed or excitement. They’re all about dropping your dog into that calm, focused, settled state where the panic simply can’t get a grip.
That’s the whole trick. Before you leave, you don’t want a tired dog. You want a settled one. There’s a world of difference, and now you know which one to aim for.
Where This Fits in the Bigger Picture
These five games are brilliant, and on their own, for a mildly anxious dog, they might be enough to take the edge off.
But here’s the honest bit. If your dog is in real distress when you leave, howling, destroying, hurting themselves, a calming game is a wonderful piece of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle. It softens the moment. It doesn’t, by itself, rewire the fear.
For that you need to do two things together: keep your dog’s brain calm and decompressed, and slowly rebuild their tolerance for being alone, step by tiny step.
The calming side of that, the full menu of decompression games, how to time them around your exits, and the enrichment that genuinely lowers stress hormones rather than just tiring a dog out, is a whole chapter in Home Alone: The Calm-Dog Guide to Ending Separation Anxiety. Alongside it sits the four-week desensitisation protocol that does the deeper work: defusing your departure cues and teaching your dog, gently, that being alone is safe.
These games are the free starter. Try one tonight, ten minutes before you head out, and watch your dog settle.
Get Home Alone on Gumroad →Click HERE
And when you’re ready to go from “a bit calmer” to “actually fine on their own,” the full plan is waiting inside.
Because a settled dog isn’t a tired dog. It’s a dog whose brain has finally been given the one thing it was crying out for: something calm to do.
Maya & Leo host The Dog Psychology Podcast, exploring the hidden emotional life of dogs for owners who want to go beyond the basics. New episodes every week at cattledogbuch.com
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