Solve
Think, figure out, create.
The deep-thinking instinct — and the reason 10 minutes of puzzle work tires your dog more than an hour-long walk.
The deep-thinking instinct — and the reason 10 minutes of puzzle work tires your dog more than an hour-long walk.
Solve is the cognitive instinct — the drive to work through problems, figure things out, and create strategies. It’s present to some degree in all dogs, but it’s strongest in breeds that were developed to make independent decisions in the field. A gun dog deciding where to search for a downed bird. A sheepdog reading a flock and choosing a flanking route. A terrier working out how to access a den. These dogs weren’t just following commands — they were thinking.
The Solve instinct is what makes some dogs figure out door handles, open latches, escape crates, and learn tricks in a single session. It’s also what makes them profoundly frustrated when they have nothing to think about. A dog with high Solve drive and nothing to solve doesn’t just get bored — they get psychologically distressed. Pacing, vocalising, repetitive behaviours, and what looks like anxiety are often a brilliant brain with nothing to work on.
This is the instinct that’s most commonly confused with “the dog is too smart for its own good.” They’re not too smart. They’re under-employed.
One of the most intelligent breeds, originally bred as water retrievers. Their cognitive ability makes them exceptional problem-solvers — and exceptionally destructive when bored.
Not just a herding breed, but a thinking breed. Collies don’t just follow commands — they anticipate, strategise, and problem-solve in real time. The cognitive demands are as great as the physical ones.
Bred for versatility across herding, guarding, and service work, requiring constant decision-making in variable situations. Their high Solve drive is why they excel in police and military roles.
Extreme cognitive capacity combined with extreme drive. These dogs need mental challenges that would stump most other breeds.
Independent problem-solvers bred to manage stubborn cattle. Their intelligence and determination mean they’ll create their own puzzles if you don’t provide them.
Deceptively high cognitive drive in a toy-sized package. Often overlooked for mental enrichment because of their size, but they have genuine problem-solving needs.
The Poodle’s cognitive abilities carry strongly through crosses. If your doodle figures out baby gates, treat dispensers, and door handles, that’s the Solve instinct at work.
You’ll recognise the Solve instinct in your dog if they:
If your dog is the one that figures out every puzzle feeder in five minutes and then looks at you like “now what?”, you’re living with a solve-driven brain.
A solve-driven dog without mental challenges is one of the most common presentations in canine behaviourist clinics. These dogs are often described as “anxious” or “hyperactive” when the real issue is cognitive understimulation.
Without problems to solve, these dogs create their own. They escape gardens. They open cupboards. They dismantle child-proof locks. They develop obsessive behaviours — spinning, pacing, light-chasing — because the problem-solving circuitry is running on empty and latching onto anything it can process.
The irony is that solve-driven dogs are often the easiest to live with once their cognitive needs are met. Twenty minutes of mental work produces a dog that settles, relaxes, and sleeps. Twenty minutes of extra walking produces a dog that’s fitter, more energetic, and still can’t switch off. More exercise isn’t the answer. More thinking is.
Instinct prescribes cognitive challenges that scale in complexity as the dog progresses. The goal is to keep the brain working at the edge of its ability — hard enough to be engaging, not so hard it’s frustrating.
Foundation activities include basic puzzle feeders with increasing difficulty, choice games (which hand? which cup?), and simple problem-solving chains (do A to get B to access C). Intermediate challenges introduce multi-step puzzles, novel object work (figuring out unfamiliar toys and mechanisms), and sequencing games where the dog must remember and repeat a series of actions. Advanced work includes complex problem-solving chains across multiple locations, concept learning (categories, matching), and cooperative cognitive games where the dog and handler solve problems together.
The beautiful thing about the Solve instinct is that it’s limitless. Unlike physical exercise, which hits diminishing returns, cognitive work scales forever. There’s always a harder puzzle, a longer chain, a more complex sequence. And every solved problem makes the dog calmer, more confident, and more bonded to the person who gives them the challenges.
Here’s what a solve-focused day might look like in the app.
3 opaque cups or yoghurt pots, high-value treats
A towel, a box, a treat, and a light obstacle
An unfamiliar household object (colander, muffin tin, empty bottle)
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