I remember being a kid and really looking forward to Easter, mostly for the Easter Egg Hunts. We’d do one inside the house in the morning and then another (harder) one outside. Well this year, Easter is going to the dogs! Everyone has heard of outdoor Easter Egg Hunts for dogs, but we came up with a few other uses for these awesome treat vessels to share with you too! See how our pups enjoyed these new Dog Easter Games.
Game #1: “Traditional” Dog Easter Egg Hunt
Our first Dog Easter Game is the “traditional” dog Easter Egg Hunt.. Not that Easter Egg Hunts for dogs are traditional, I just mean the standard “hide eggs outside and let them find them” version. Nose work is great exercise for dogs, both physically and mentally, and Easter Eggs are a perfect vessel for a sniffin’ good time with your pups. It’s cheap, easy and fun!
Y’all know I’m a self-proclaimed cheapskate, so I love things like this. I spent a whopping $3.99 for hours of fun with my mutts. Not bad right?
I found a 12 pack of colorful plastic Easter Eggs for $1 at Five Below! You can also fin eggs this time of year at any dollar store, grocery store, superstore and pharmacy around the country for a dollar or 2. Then all you need are some treats. I picked up a bag of 200 training treats for only $2.99 at TJ Maxx.
I like to use training treats because:
1. They’re small
2. They’re low in calories (ours were 1.5 calories each and I put 2 in each egg)
3. They are usually REALLY STINKY, which is great if you want your dog to sniff them out!
All that’s left to do is load up the eggs, hide them around your yard, and watch your dog sniff around and find them! You’ll be surprised how quickly they catch on, even if this is their first time.
Our dogs have never done this before, so I made sure to put some easy to find eggs around the yard that they could find quickly to get the idea. Before I knew it, they were finding all the hidden ones like it was nothing! Even ones under the hammock and in planters!
Don’t mind the weeds in all of the pictures. I prefer to spend time hanging with my dogs over having a picture perfect lawn. Anyway…
The great thing about doing an Easter Egg Hunt with your dog is that you can tailor it to fit your specific pooch. For instance, Roxie is still a young pup with ZERO attention span, so I put her eggs in easier places, and many in plain sight so she wouldn’t get frustrated or bored. On the other hand, if you have a dog like Boomer, who’s at least half hound and a professional sniffer, you can get a bit more creative. She LOVES to tree things, so I even put some in the trees for her. She was super proud when she found this one and was waiting for me to tell her she could get it. Such a good girl.
Game #2: Bobbing for Easter Eggs
Did you know that Easter Eggs float? I had a hunch they would, even carrying treats! So… we put it to the test and they SURE DO! The birth of Dog Easter Game #2! You’ve heard of bobbing for apples, well we’re bobbing for Easter Eggs. Time to fill up the baby pool (or the “dog pool” as it’s known in our house) and have some warm weather fun splashing around and bobbing for eggs!
Fill your plastic Easter eggs back up with one or two training treats (don’t use biscuits or something that gets soggy easily because a little bit of water may get inside) and enjoy the show. Our pack had a blast catching these pesky eggs and cracking them open for their reward!
I think this may be our dogs’ new favorite game! Check out the video below for some laughs! (Ringo’s technique could use a little work, but I kind of like it this way!)
Game #3: Easter Egg Puzzle Boxes
Like I said earlier… Easter eggs really are a great vessel for some nose work with your dogs. Our pups had so much fun finding eggs outside that I thought I’d take it up a notch and make some “egg puzzles” for the dogs.
If you’re anything like our family, you probably have a pile of cardboard boxes lying around from recent Amazon orders… I know we sure do. So why not put those discarded boxes to use before putting them in the recycling bin?
I found a bunch of boxes in different shapes and sizes and set up some “puzzles” for the dogs to solve. Each box had an egg inside, filled with some training treats of course. The dogs had to flip over, open and knock around the boxes to get the eggs out and get their reward. Now that Boomer associates eggs with treats, she was super excited just watching me set this up.
We hope you enjoyed our Easter Egg Games! Do you have a fun Easter game or activity that you do with your pets? We’d love to hear about it in the comments!
**PLEASE NOTE** You should NEVER let your dog play with plastic easter eggs unsupervised. They can easily be broken and ingested. For their safety, please supervise your dog at all times when playing these games. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Debbie & the mutts
46 Comments
These are such fun ideas! I love it when people involve their pets in their celebrations. 🙂 I put catnip inside Easter eggs and let my cats find the eggs. They love it!
Thanks, they had a blast! Your cat egg hunt sounds so fun. I need to try catnnip eggs for my cat next year. She doesn’t care about treats AT ALL, but she goes for catnip sometimes. Thanks for reading!
Oh my gosh, this is such a fabulous idea! I don’t think my two would be interested, especially bobbing for them. However, I can see how much fun yours are having. Love it!
Thanks Bren! My pups are pretty food driven and after doing the regular Easter Egg Hunt and figuring out that eggs hold treats, they were all about it! Made for a fun afternoon 🙂
This may be one of my most favorite posts ever!! I wonder if putting a little vegetable oil on the eggs would make it even more challenging to bob for?!
Thanks Rene! 🙂 HAHA! I bet it probably would, though I don’t think Ringo could hack it at that point. lol
The Shelter where I volunteer has a doggie Easter egg hunt every year. Many of the eggs have treats, but a few also have gift cards and other things for humans. It’s really fun and also a fundraiser for the shelter. I love the bobbing for eggs idea – I will have to suggest that for next year’s event.
That’s awesome! The rescue we fostered for in Austin did a big Easter Egg Hunt every year too. It was so fun and such a great way to raise money for the pups. Our dogs absolutely LOVED bobbing for eggs! I bet the shelter pups would too, especially on a hot day! Thanks for reading 🙂
Lots of cute ideas. We don’t do anything particularly for Easter but we might go for a hike.
We don’t usually do anything for Easter either, but I saw the eggs at the store and knew the dogs could have a lot of fun with them. Enjoy your hike! Thats probably what we’ll end up doing on Sunday too! 🙂
Ooooh a doggy Easter egg hunt, what fun! I’d be concerned that Magic would crunch up the plastic eggs, though, but the hide and seek would be great fun for him.
Our oldest Helo likes to try to eat things he shouldn’t, especially with treats inside, but our pups all have a very strong “drop it” command. I had them do the hunt one at a time so I could keep a close eye on them and make sure no eggs got broken or eaten. Whenever Helo found one, I’d have him drop it and I’d hand him the treats from the egg. They had so much fun!
Ha, this is so clever. It never occurred to me to organize an Easter egg hunt for my dogs. They say, how about Easter bacon?
It was a fun afternoon of egg games for sure. You should totally try it with your pups. And shh.. before my dog all want Easter bacon 😉 LOL! That’s usually a “camping trip only” kind of treat
Fabulous post! I had never thought of an Easter egg hunt before, and I love the mention by The Daily Pip about the shelter having a fundraising egg hunt – that’s a brilliant idea. The pictures are fab, looks like the dogs had a blast.
Thank you! They had so much fun. We aren’t big on dressing up the pups for holidays, but this is one holiday tradition that I think we’ll have to stick with, especially the bobbing for eggs part! I think that was their favorite. Hope you have a great weekend, whether you celebrate or not! 🙂
I love doing noseworks with my dogs. The Easter eggs are an awesome idea! I usually just do boxes like you showed here.
I’ve been meaning to get into nose work with the dogs and after these games, I really think they’d love it, Boomer especially. The eggs were a good intro and I’m excited to try more! Thanks for reading
What a cute and clever post for Easter fun for dogs. I’ll have to share with some of my friends pronto!
So glad you liked our Easter game ideas! The dogs had a blast and I’m sure yours would too. I think it may turn into a non-Easter just for fun thing for us now too. Thanks for reading!
Great ideas WOW, I will have to remember them for next year and do them with the dogs in the park, it will be so much fun, thank you and Happy Easter
Thank you! I’m so glad you liked the ideas. I was looking around for ideas on Pinterest for Easter and was not coming up with much at all, so we came up with our own! The dogs had a blast! Hope you had a good Easter
So much fun! I love all of these ideas. Love the photo of Boomer with his tree egg. 🙂 I have an egg hunt with my cats every year, and it’s a blast. In fact, we’re about to hide the eggs for it right now! Got to go!!!
I saw that! I’m gonna have to try to hide some eggs for our cat Jasmine. I bet your kitties had a blast. Excited to see who won this year 🙂
Great ideas! Love the find it game for dogs. Any dog I’ve done it with catches on very quickly, especially once they figure out it involves treats! I like the box idea, will have to try it. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Karen. They caught on really quickly and had so much fun. I think it’s time to play a lot more find it games with them. 🙂 The box game will definitely be coming back out on rainy days too! Thanks for visiting!
What great ideas for a really fun Easter with the furry family members. I LOVE bobbing for easter eggs and watching your pack on the video. Thanks for the ideas and fun!
Thank you Denise! They were so cute to watch bobbing for eggs! I think it’s their new favorite game. I may have to stock up on eggs before they’re all gone for the year! Thanks for visiting 🙂
These are such fun ideas! I love the bobbing for eggs game in the pool It’s also a great way for dogs to cool off while having fun.
That was their favorite game! AND it was ridiculously cute to watch them, Ringo especially. 🙂 It has been really hot here this week, so the pool was a definite plus! Thanks for reading and have a great week!
I bet they loved all the games! Boomer does look very proud of finding the treed egg. We hide little treats in the house for our pets to find.
That sounds like a lot of fun, I bet your pets love it. Anything the encourages them to sniff around and use their brains is such a great activity. I know our dogs had an absolute blast. Thanks for reading!
I’ve never even thought of doing an Easter egg hunt for the dogs. What a fun idea! And the bobbing for eggs too. I’m loving it. Thanks for the ideas.
Thanks Jeanne! They really seemed to have a blast with it. We’ve done an egg hunt before, but the bobbing for eggs was new and was probably their favorite. Thanks for reading!
This is brilliant, dogs deserve to have fun, Easter can be stressful, busy and full of dangerous chocolate so games mean doggy activity and fun!! 🙂
Thanks Marjorie! You are so right, the holidays often mean lots of extra people and activities that are not necessarily fun for pups. Games are a great way to work their brains, get their energy out, and they’re fun! Thanks for reading 🙂
Great games! I love bobbing for Easter eggs or anything in the water. Loads of fun. I just saw my vet do an Easter egg hunt with hard boiled eggs, shell removed. Looked fun.
Our dogs loved bobbing for eggs! I’m gonna have to come up with more bobbing games for them now! That’s a great idea about the hard boiled eggs. I was thinking about making some for the dogs, but didn’t consider using them for an egg hunt. That’s brilliant! Thanks for reading 🙂
This is so fun! I would have never thought to do the bobbing for eggs until reading this! That would be a fun warm weather activity to help pups cool off and be mentally stimulated. Great post.
Thanks Bryn! I honestly wasn’t sure if it was going to work on not, but I was so happy that it did. The dogs had SO MUCH fun bobbing for eggs and cracking them open to get their treats! It was perfect, especially with our crazy warm weather down south right now! Thanks for reading and hope you had an awesome weekend 🙂
I never thought of an Easter egg hunt for dogs, but this is a wonderful idea. I need to recommend this idea to my mom and sister with their dogs.
Thanks! Our pups had a great time, especially bobbing for eggs in the pool. I hope your family’s dogs enjoy these games too.
I really like how you switched it up and made the bobbing for eggs and the puzzle games! I’ll have to try those, and you’re right an egg hunt is perfect nose work practice!
Thanks Cathy! I tried to get a bit creative with it and the dogs seemed to really enjoy it, the bobbing for eggs game especially. Hope your pups love them too if you do try them. Fun AND great mental exercise. 🙂 Thanks for reading
WOW – never thought of doing anything like this with Ralph – I really cannoy wait for easter now, its the school holidays so I might let the kids have some fun with him in the garden 🙂
You NEED to try it with Ralph. My dogs have a blast with these egg games every year! I bet your kids would love hiding the eggs and watching Ralph find them! We do this all year long. No need to wait for Easter!