Canine enrichment means “engaging your dog in activities designed to stimulate their mind and keep them physically fit.”
Why is enrichment so important?
Studies have shown that enrichment can:
✅ Reduce undesirable behaviours, such as chewing, barking, biting, digging, or attention seeking.
✅ Encourage natural behaviours.
✅ Improve the quality of life
✅ Slows age-related cognitive decline (so that’s helping senior dogs get old slower).
In addition to this, providing the right kind of enrichment to your dog can encourage calm behaviours, teaching them to settle and giving you a much more peaceful home!
What benefits can enriching your dog give YOU?
✅ A calmer home
✅ An easier-to-manage dog
✅ A better bond with your dog, allowing you to communicate easier with them, as well as being more likely to have them listen to you.
✅ Enrichment can encourage the whole family to get together and do more.
✅ Enriching your dog can encourage children to get involved in helping to care for your dog, and teach them how to communicate with them.
Interested in learning more?
Well, you probably already do some enrichment already without even knowing it!
➡️ Do you train your dog on a walk?
➡️ Do you swap your dog’s toys regularly?
➡️ Do you massage your dog?
➡️ Do you play ‘find it’ games?
➡️ Do you feed your dog from a Kong?
All of these are really common ways to enrich your dog, but they certainly aren’t the only way!
So if you already do some enrichment, even just little bits, why bother doing more? Some people can never enrich their dog, and have no problems at all, however this is very rare. Most people who don’t use enrichment (or enough enrichment) have problems with their dogs such as…
🐶 Barking
🐶 Digging
🐶 Chewing
🐶 Over excitement
🐶 Boredom
🐶 Aggression
But don’t worry! It’s NEVER too late to start!
It doesn’t have to be difficult, and I have plenty of ideas to get you going!
1. Make sure to like and follow my Facebook page and Instagram page @muckypupsdogtraining for tips and training ideas.
2. I have blogs about various types of enrichment - visit my other blog posts:
3. I have a new program with LOTS of information and a bonus 2 MONTH enrichment plan! You can access it here: Ultimate Boredom Buster | Mucky Pups (muckypups-dogtraining.com)
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