Canine Enrichment is powerful stuff. Dogs are designed from the ground up to lead active lifestyles with both mental as well as physical stimulation. All too often owners focus mainly on physical. Exercise just isn’t enough. We have to engage our dogs’ brains as much (or more) than their bodies. The fallout from not doing this doesn’t just stop with boredom. Tons and tons of behavior problems are rooted in understimulation. On the flip side, we’ve seen a robust canine enrichment program dramatically turn around a dog’s behavior. From helping a terrified rescue dog build confidence, to helping a shelter dog keep from crawling out of their skin, to even getting a nighttime barker to settle down canine enrichment is the most important thing you’re (probably) not doing.

Take a look at this beginning list for some of our favorites here at Simpawtico. At the bottom we have some resources listed so you can deep dive into this topic if you like.

WORK-to-EAT

Work-to-Eat (WTE) setups are the easiest type of enrichment to execute and there are innumerable ways to do it. You can start this one today with just stuff you have around the house.

Stuffed store-bought toys:

Kongs, Barnacles, Squirrel Dudes, Atomic Balls, Buster Cubes, Quizls.

We have a video/blog post on how to stuff a Kong efficiently, but you can use any of the toys listed above in the same way.

Box/Bag Meals:

Save your cereal boxes, granola bar boxes, paper egg crates, and other similar items and use them for work-to-eat meals.

Stubbies:

Save all of your toilet paper rolls and your paper towel rolls. These make quick and easy little “fun bombs.”

Take your toilet paper rolls and fold one end down. Fill it with some good food: some of the supercharged kibble we showed you how to make, a bit of shredded cheese, some training treats, diced veggies, whatever you want that’s healthy and palatable. Cap the open end with a knob of peanut butter and put it in the freezer.

With paper towel rolls, you can cut them in half or in thirds to fit your dog’s needs.

And yes: it’s likely that they’ll eat the cardboard. It’s ok! They’ll just poop it out!

You can make a dozen of these in about five minutes for a whole week’s worth of them.

Muffin Tins:

A muffin tin makes a super easy WTE that may be a good introductory setup for a dog with low frustration tolerance. These dogs will give up soon if the food isn’t practically given to them, so we can help build their interest and commitment to accessing the food by starting with something easy.

Muzzle Mats:

There are commercially available “snuffle mats” but our favorite is just a rubber drainage mat from a restaurant supply. These can be cut into several pieces to make dishwasher-safe mats that you can scatter food onto. The holes make it so your dog has to snuffle around and work to get all the pieces.

You could ostensibly keep a larger mat intact for a more challenging surface to work though, if you have the space.

Treat Rolls:

This one’s so easy. Take a dish towel or tea towel and place a bead of food down the middle. Then, roll that sucker up like a burrito. Let your dog snuffle around with it and figure out how to unroll it to access the goods. We usually make a stack of three or four for the bulldogs to work through.

PHYSICAL ENRICHMENT

Road Construction (also Cognitive):

This is a big recommendation of ours in our training system in general and it’s part of our Basic Walking training. We recommend that every 25 yards, or 50 yards, or even 100 yards do something; have your dog Sit, or Stay, or look at you, or do a Come-Fore, or some combination of things. Keep the walk form becoming just mindless exercise.

This is great too if you have obedience pieces that need work. Pick one thing that needs shoring up and do that during the walk. If you did that one thing every 25 yards on a 3 mile walk, you’d have done it 211 times! It’ll be practically done.

Urban Agility:

Look for obstacles and things that your dog can jump up on, over, or run through. Park benches, picnic tables, playground equipment, you name it. Be creative in the way you look at the world around you.

In our neck of the woods we have these big concrete blocks all over the neighborhood and they make great impromptu platforms to jump around on and practice skills.

Kiddie Pools (water or Sand):

Water for cooling off and playing. Sand for digging.

Dog Sports:

• Agility
• Rally Obedience
• Flyball
• Triebball
• Lure Coursing
• Protection (IPO/Schutzhund, Mondioring)

COGNITIVE ENRICHMENT

Puzzles

Nosework:

Also known as scent detection, this is where we activate a dog’s nose to locate items that we’ve hidden. A dog’s olfactory bulb is 40 times larger than ours, so getting them to use it lights up their brain like a Christmas tree.

Professional working dogs of course do this sort of thing to find bombs and illegal drugs, or to locate lost hikers and injured skiers. Service dogs do this to detect oncoming seizures or low blood sugar in their owners.

Hide and Seek:

This is a super game to play with your dog. It improves Stay, Come, and bonding. We love it so much, we have a video/blog post about it!

SENSORY ENRICHMENT

Nosework (also Cognitive):

We mentioned this above in the Cognitive Enrichment section.

Scent of the Day:

Get some essential oils, and some food extracts:

• Lavender oil
• Cinnamon
• Vanilla extract
• Orange extract

Then, pick up some spray bottles at the dollar store. A few drops of oil or extract in water will make a scented spray. Mist your dog’s bedding while they’re outside, or the walls of the room they’re kept in while you’re gone. You can mist areas outside for them to explore, or even just mist the air for them to do a little air-scenting. This is way better for your dog than Febreze!

Alternatively, you could

Bubbles:

Blowing bubbles, believe it or not, is really stimulating to some dogs. Some dogs, of course, couldn’t care less but for others it’s a wondrous, magical thing happening. There are even bacon flavored bubbles out there just for this purpose!

DEVELOPMENTAL TOYS/PLAY

Organizing your toys is very important.

Tug/Fetch:

Thus is hands down one of our favorite interactive activities with a dog. It expends tremendous amounts of energy while developing motor skills. It also gives us a chance to use it as a potent obedience reward so we can get away from relying on food all of the time.

We have a PDF on how to teach tug:

Flirt Poles:

Flirt poles are like big, dog-sized version of the classic cat toy. Here’s how to make and use one.

SOCIAL ENRICHMENT

Play Groups:

Excursions:

Going to Work:

BREED-SPECIFIC

Herding dogs need a chance to HERD

Working dogs need a chance to WORK

Urban mushing

RESOURCES

Pinterest:

Follow our Pinterest Board specifically for canine enrichment. We curate this carefully—quality is more important than quantity!

Be sure to follow our other Pinterest boards for other cool things!

Books:

Take a look at the book, Beyond Squeaky Toys: Innovative Ideas for Eliminating Problem Behaviors and Enriching the Lives of Dogs and Cats on Amazon.

Facebook Group:

Canine Enrichment

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, Simpawtico Dog Training, LLC will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, we only recommend products or services we use personally, and that we believe will add value to our readers. We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” Your support in purchasing through these links enables us to keep simpawtico-training.com running so we can deliver great content to you free. Thank you!