Who doesn’t love Canine Enrichment?
I honestly think its amazing & so rewarding for you & your four-legged friends. Not only can you stimulate your pup it keeps you thinking about ways to use all sorts of things around the house.
Enrichment improves quality of life, gives a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction and has both psychological and physiological benefits. Enrichment should have a satisfying goal, be safe and appropriate for the dog, stimulate natural behaviour, provide sensory stimulation, involve physical movement and offer cognitive challenge. Longer term benefits of enrichment might include increased confidence, weight loss in dogs who actively work for their dinner, a reduction in boredom-related behaviour problems, focus and concentration may also improve as the brain is regularly exercised, and enrichment builds a stronger bond between owner and dog through interactive play.
There is loads of ways to build enrichment into your dogs day:
- Environmental – Let your dogs explore & sniff, take them to a new park or walk.
- Feeding – providing food in different and challenging ways such as hiding, scattering or burying.
- Manipulation – giving items that can be explored by paws, feet, head and mouth to encourage investigation and play.
- Puzzles – feeders that require simple problem solving to access food and other rewards.
- Sensory – objects that stimulate sight, smell, sound, touch and taste.
- Social – providing the opportunity to interact with other animals and/or humans.
Give it a go, your pup will really thank you for it.
