Dog Training Activity: Easy Enrichment for Bored Pups

Have you ever watched your dog playing in your yard and seen the array of behaviors they display? Have you seen them roll in smelly stuff, do a quick tasting of the grass, then sniff along all the edges of your yard for intruders? If you’ve seen these things, you’ve seen a ton of natural dog behaviors. In the wild, canid species do these behaviors to survive. In pet dogs, these behaviors are mentally stimulating and fun!

Because our dogs are not able to choose the place they’ll be spending their day, we can give them additional opportunities to show their natural behaviors. These opportunities that we can present are called enrichment. Enrichment can be anything we add or change about their environment that stimulates natural behaviors from our dogs. If you live with a dog that seems to need endless exercise or a dog that bothers you for attention, they might need a little additional mental exercise. Additionally, some underconfident dogs can work to build their confidence by exploring their environments when presented with novel items.

The objects and activities we offer our dogs can be sights, smells, tastes, textures, and sounds and they don’t have to be expensive to be fun. We’re going to be going over some enrichment options that you probably have in your home right now!

Taste

Okay, let’s face it, some of us have food hounds! These are the dogs that won’t say no to a tasty morsel of any kind. For the majority of dogs, enrichment is the easiest to offer in food format. We know that most dogs will interact with food when it is presented in a new and exciting way, especially if that food is a particular favorite. Let’s talk about some new ways to present food to our dogs!

Food-dispensing “toys”

There are many toys on the market for purchase that dispense food in a variety of ways to our dogs. The toys allow you to fill them, and the holes in the toy either slowly release the food to your dog or they allow your dog access to excavate the food! How fun!

To make some do it yourself versions of these toys you need a few recyclables and a little ingenuity. Try drilling some holes in a plastic bottle (make them kibble or treat sized holes or a little bigger), fill the bottle, and then hand it to your dog. Because bottles are cylindrical, your less confident dogs will have to do less work to get food to come out. Also, consider adding more holes and bigger holes until your dog gets the hang of the game. For added difficulty, make fewer holes so that your dog has to work to position the bottle to release food.

You can also use packaging materials such as boxes to make a food-dispensing toy. Boxes are challenging because to tip them your dog has to be confident in manipulating the object itself and possibly maintaining contact with it. For dogs that just go to town and rip into the box, this is where the excavation comes in. If you have an excavator, you can make a box more difficult by hiding additional puzzles within the box. Think about treats wrapped in paper or more boxes within the box you’ve presented. The options are endless!

Beyond recyclables, we can also talk about commonly owned kitchen items such as muffin tins that can be used to create an excellent enrichment feeder. Muffin tins are great because you can make an increasingly challenging puzzle for your dog based on how confident they are. To start, simply place or smear treats into the holes of your muffin tin and let your dog sniff out and source the treats. To make this more challenging, you can then cover the holes with tennis balls or other balls that you have around the house. Your dog will then have to manipulate the tennis balls or the whole puzzle to gain access to the food. As a confidence builder, I will sometimes add a cookie sheet under and on top of the muffin tin to increase my dog’s confidence around loud noises. It helps their confidence to create noises themselves, especially to get at the great treats they know are available.

These videos show different versions of enrichment games with muffin tins, to support dogs as they build confidence

For all of the above games, if your dog balks at the difficulty level you’ve presented them with, try not to show them what to do by manipulating the puzzle for them. Instead, remove the puzzle, make it easier, then give it back to your dog. You can do this by adding more or larger holes to a bottle or box, opening a box to make it’s contents partially accessible, or by removing one level of difficulty in the muffin tin game. Work at your dog’s pace and you’ll see them become puzzle fiends in no time.

Lick surfaces

Dogs love smeary foods. The best stuff is often the ooey-gooey peanut butter or squeeze cheese. There are many ways to present soft foods to our dogs that can be enriching and can be long-lasting. Smearing these foods onto varied surfaces can be tasty and fun. My preference for surfaces are washable surfaces that my dog will not try to ingest, so I steer away from fabrics.

A good basic option is a baking sheet. The slick metal surface will hold smearable foods nicely and the large surface area can make this an enduring treat. To increase the challenge, you can also freeze smeared foods on the surface you are presenting them on. Let the metal surfaces thaw a bit before offering. To increase the challenge, find surfaces with a bit more texture.

If you have any nifty silicone potholders, they are often patterned with nooks and crannies that hold soft smeared foods nicely. You can also experiment with the underside of different Tupperware containers, as often they are patterned or have textures to make them non-slip. You can present these to your dogs on the floor or a plate, or you can make it more interesting by hanging them against a wall.

Discussion of super fun lick enrichment!

Smell

Let’s talk sniffing! This is such an important part of our dog’s lives and plays an integral role in their health. Dogs have abilities to perceive scent that far surpass ours; we can provide them some ways to use that skill that are novel and exciting!

Snuffle mats

Okay, so it all circles back to food. But really, I want to emphasize the role of their nose in this exercise. Snuffle mats are created using fabric to create a grass-like surface to hide food or other scents. There are excellent options for purchasing these online, but you can also create one using a do it yourself template. The benefits of allowing your dog to sniff out their food are plenty, but this activity helps to decompress a stressed dog and can diffuse them in the event of difficult behaviors. To use a snuffle mat, put a handful of kibble or small treats into the mat and then rough it up a little by moving the flaps around with your hand. Then let your dog sniff out all the treats to their heart's content.

What say you non-crafty folk? What else can we use to stimulate this kind of behavior that isn’t a mat we purchase or a mat we’ve painstakingly created? Easy, go out and toss some treats in the grass. Grass is nature’s snuffle mat! You can also use any kind of ground cover or dropped leaves for this purpose. If you’re stuck inside, get a bin and toss some recyclables into the bin, then toss some kibble in with that.

This video features manufactured snuffle mats and natural snuffling

Searches

Keep those noses working! Another great indoor game is doing a food search in the house. Simply plant kibbles or treats around the room and allow your dog to sniff them out. At first, make your hiding places very easy like surfaces that you’re comfortable allowing your dog on and around furniture. As your dog gets better at this game, make the hiding places a little more difficult so that your dog may have to burrow and navigate obstacles to access them.

Nosework is also a great enrichment game. This is a game where we pair specific odors with good things like food or toy play and then teach our dogs to seek out that scent. If your dog loves to work and learn, this may be the perfect outlet for them.

Sniffy Walks

A sniffy walk is another offering that is appropriate for all dogs. This is by far the best kind of walk for tiring your dog mentally and providing excellent enrichment. I prefer to take my dog for sniffy walks on a longer leash in a park that has areas that are not too crowded. I typically let my dog chart the course and let them follow their nose. If your dog tends to get distracted by visuals, that is okay too, but encourage them by walking them along to park edges and wooded paths to sniff.

Sight and Sound

I’m going to cheat and group these senses. Because they often go hand in hand, we can offer some enrichment for our dogs that offer both novel visuals and sounds. It is especially important to offer this type of novelty to younger dogs as they begin to experience the world, we want them to be able to adapt to new sights and sounds as they age.

Out in the “wild”

The wild in Boston is different from the wild even a few miles down the road. But it is important to expose your dog to a variety of sights and sounds in a way that increases their confidence. If I wanted to expose my dog to the noise and sight of the T, I would start at a good distance away from it. Let them hear the rush of the train from a few blocks away. If they are afraid or hesitant, stand at a distance where they do not show any stress behaviors. As their confidence increases, you can stand somewhere so that they might see the train as it coasts to a stop to let passengers off. You’ll be surprised at how tiring seeing something new is!

You can also do this out in the woods. Has your dog ever seen huge rocks and heard the wind in the trees before? If they are a young puppy, they may have no exposure to these things, so it’s important to let them see and hear at their pace. Make short outings fun for them - soon you’ll have a dog that can’t get enough of nature.

Screen time

Okay, I will admit it, I love a TV watching dog. Dogs are often drawn to animals on screen as well as colorful well-defined images as sometimes offered by cartoons. And everyone has heard their dog bark at a doorbell on TV. I don’t often emphasize screen time, but it does offer enrichment to our dogs and it can be useful.

Use screen time to your advantage by pairing noises your dog may not be comfortable hearing with food. This can be noises such as barking, keys jingling, or the aforementioned (and dreaded) doorbell. If your dog has an emotional reaction to a noise, start by playing it at the lowest level possible and then pair it with food. I do this by using videos on YouTube. You can also find videos on YouTube to spark their interest such as wild animal calls!

Texture and Touch

Touch is important to our dogs, as it is one of the best ways that we can bond and show our love. We can also vary how we touch our dog to change their mood or to help them have a novel experience. Dogs are drawn to gentle touch just like we are, and they are drawn to a warm basket of laundry like us too! Let’s think of ways to incorporate this into their enrichment program.

Massage

Canine massage is a fast-growing industry, and not just for the physical health benefits. The mental health benefit on the giving and receiving end of canine massage is notable as well. First, use gentle stroking motions to help to calm your dog. Staccato short pats are not calming and can be indicative of play and can stimulate more motion. Focus on areas that your dog enjoys touch first and use long gentle strokes in the direction of your dog’s coat. As your dog relaxes into your touch, you can incorporate gentle strokes in areas you don’t attend very often, like their legs and feet, and even their cheeks where a lot of tension is stored.

Textures to lay or walk on

Do you know the best blanket in your house? The one you fight over when you’re on the couch? Well, chances are your dog enjoys that texture as well. Provide new textures of surfaces to relax on as an environmental change. You can also vary a texture of flooring for your dog to walk on. Knobbly surfaces, obstacles, and soft surfaces are all good to provide interest in what might be a normal day of walking around the house. If your dog is hesitant to go on a surface, reward them for interactions with the surface where they sniff or look at the surface.

You can also do a training session on varied surfaces. Some people use human or canine exercise equipment to build muscles on their dogs, but these also offer a form of enrichment for our dogs. The mental exercise needed to stay stable on an unstable surface is very enriching! So, take out those foam exercise implements (or even a couch cushion) and do a training session on that surface.

Enrichment doesn’t have to be fancy and you don’t even have to know you’re enriching your dog. Anytime you provide them with a novel experience or opportunity to experience their environment in a new way - you’re enriching their lives and helping to keep them a fulfilled and happy pup!

Safety

If your dog is prone to ingesting items such as paper, use caution when providing these to eat out of. Monitor your dog the first time you give them any puzzle toy to watch for ingestion. If your dog is fearful of any object you’ve given them, do not force them to approach it. You can remove enrichment items and present them again at a different time or at a different difficulty level.

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