Enrichment – The Most Important Thing For Your Pet

Enrichment is the wheel of behaviors your pet would naturally do “in the wild” or when left to their own devices.  This assumes your pet is physically and mentally healthy.  Pain, neurological conditions or mental disorders will affect an animal’s normal behaviors (humans included).

Your pets’ enrichment wheel will depend on their individual personality first and foremost, species and breed (if applicable).  For example, if you have a pet rat, their wheel would consist of things like foraging for food and water, social play, lots of grooming (both singular and allogrooming – social grooming), lots of chewing, building nests, finding shelter, sleeping, etc.  If you have a border collie, their wheel would probably consist of thing like smelling, herding behaviors (chase, stalk, circle, nip), lots of brain games, foraging for food and water, lots of walking/running, sleep, social play (often with a human, but many individuals have friends with other animals), etc.

When all of your pets’ enrichment needs are met, you’ll probably find that most of their behaviors you object to seem to melt away.  This is because when they are mentally and physically enriched, they aren’t looking for other ways to meet those needs.  If appropriate chews are provided for them that they like AND they’ve received reinforcement for chewing on those, they have no reason to chew on your shoes, or your table.  If they’ve been given appropriate height and material scratching areas in places where they feel safe using them (often next to places they’ve already been scratching), they have no reason to scratch your couch. 

Most people immediately jump straight to training to solve behavior problems.  Training is wonderful and is a great complementor to enrichment.  However, enrichment should always be priority number one and should do the heavy lifting.

In an ideal world it should go Enrichment -> Management -> Training.  All three should be used together to create the optimal healthy relationship between pet and owner.  We understand that it’s not always possible to do all three, so our recommendation is to prioritize in the above order.  Again, there are always exceptions and in certain cases, management or training may need to be prioritized for the safety of the pet or those around them.  Seek qualified professional help if you are unsure of what to do.

So what exactly is Enrichment?

As stated above, it’s different for each individual and species, but let’s go through a more typical example of an enrichment wheel for a dog.  These are options to choose from and you don’t need to do every thing every day.  The average dog needs about 2 hours of activity a day.  You’ll need to play around with things and figure out what works best for your dog. Note that mental exercise usually tires a dog out 4x faster than physical exercise but is NOT a replacement for physical exercise.

Physical

• Diet/nutrition
  • Foraging
    • Scatter-feeding
    • Food dispensers (DIY and store-bought)
    • Food puzzles
    • Stuffable products like Kong and Toppl
      
  • Training
    • This can and should include using regular kibble during mealtimes
  • Stop using regular food bowls (they’re a wasted opportunity!)
    
• Exercise
  •  Walks/Runs/Hiking (Note that walks aren’t good exercise except for seniors or dogs with limited mobility)
  • Swimming
  • Bikejoring or any other “joring” sport
  • Competition or for fun dog sports (check with your vet first!)
  • Fetch
  • Tug
  • Flirt pole
  • Digging
  • Trick-training
  • Balance pods, Dog yoga
  • Healthy play with you or other animals
  • Be careful with growing puppies and don’t create an athlete unless you can handle it!
• Environmental
  • Need at least one nap during the day, preferably more – especially puppies and seniors
  • Need a safe (physically) and secure (emotionally) space to live
  • Need to feel comfortable with the surroundings
    • Noise
    • Textures
    • Inanimate objects
    • Movements
    • This includes neighbors/neighborhood
  • Need to feel comfortable with the people they live with/interact with on a regular basis
  • Need to have some sort of routine/predictability to reduce stress
• Health
  • Routine check-ups
  • Behavior changes may indicate poor health
  • Think about how your health affects your behavior
• Hygiene
  • Not the same as human hygiene!
  • Dogs usually do pretty well with keeping clean
  • Bathe no more than every 6 weeks unless they REALLY need it
  • Spot clean with unscented pet wipes
  • Trim fur around feet and sanitary areas if needed (ask a groomer for help if you aren’t sure what you’re doing)
• Safety
  • Need help to be kept physically safe – dogs don’t know the difference between security and safety.  They may feel secure wandering in the middle of the road or approaching an unknown dog.  We need to make decisions for them and manage their safety.

Emotional

• Independence
  • Learning to be ok left by themselves for short periods
  • Learning to entertain themselves without your constant attention
  • Karen Overall’s Relaxation Protocol
  • Agency – the capacity, condition or state of acting of exerting power (having a say on what happens to them)
    • Opposite of learned helplessness
    • Immunization Training – how we train animals to be resistant to learned helplessness
• Mental Stimulation
  • Training (especially trick-training)
  • Confidence-building exercises (trying anything new they can easily succeed at)
  • Foraging
  • Scent-work
  • Introductions to different sounds, scents, tactile stimulations, tastes, etc.
  • Play/Social Play
• Social Interaction
  • Play (healthy play with people, dogs or other species)
  • Observation/Social learning
  • Social activities (naps/cuddles together, chewing/eating together, walks, etc.)
  • Training
    

Instinctual

• Foraging
• Chewing
• Security
  
• Other behaviors specific to your individual dog
  
  • Herding
    
  • Digging
    
  • Nipping/Biting
    
  • Guarding
    
  • Retrieval
    
  • "Velcro" behavior
    
  • Barking
    
  • etc.
    

All of this must be done with the dog choosing to participate.  If the dog is given no choice, this is not enrichment.  This is forced interaction and will likely become flooding, which can lead to learned helplessness – the opposite of what we wish to accomplish through an enrichment program.

Start with 2-3 of these activities each day and build from there.  See what your dog likes and change up the activities each day to keep things interesting.  For different species, research your species and based on what your individual pet likes, create a similar enrichment list.

If you have any questions, please contact us and we’d be happy to help!

Additional, amazing resources:

Canine Enrichment for the Real World by Allie Bender and Emily Strong

Facebook group – Canine Enrichment (mostly foraging ideas, but still good info)

Facebook group – Canine Enrichment Ideas (mostly foraging ideas but still good info)