Mental Enrichment for Dogs

We all know that dogs need physical exercise whether that is an hour long lead walk twice a day or an hour off lead running around a park. The importance of physical exercise for dogs has been drilled into us but what hasn't been a major thing until fairly recently is mental exercise for your dog, mental enrichment.

Mental enrichment for your dog is anything that gets them using their brain. Whether that is sniffing things out, searching for toys, learning a new trick, getting food out of a puzzle or laying down and licking a Kong.

These activities can be much more satisfying to your dog than physical exercise alone. Both are important and needed, the mental side is just often overlooked.

Mental enrichment ideas:

• Scent work

• Snuffle boxes

• Puzzles

• Puzzle Balls

• Treat balls

• Find it games

• Trick training

• Lickimatt

• Kong

We often like to throw a few of these ideas together and give Roo 'Free Time'. We would hide some sprats around the dinning room, set up a snuffle box and put down a blanket tied up with treats in it. We then let her into the room and it's up to her what she plays with and when. This will usually keep her busy for an hour, after that she is pretty tired.

Make sure whatever enrichment you go for, it's suitable for your dog and their needs. Roo resource guards so although we have a few puzzle toys, we rarely get them out as once she has removed the plastic cover hiding the treat she is likely to eat the treat and guard the plastic!

For snuffle boxes, just put to one side any delivery boxes you get as well as kitchen roll, toliet roll and newspaper. Then fill the box with some scraps of newspaper, sprinkle in some treats. Put treats inside the kitchen/toliet roll tubes and fold both ends. Give it to your dog and watch them sniff out the treats and have fun shredding the box. A lot of dogs like to scrap at things whether it's digging in the garden or scrapping at their bedding, this provides them with a good outlet for it. It also helps keep your recycling bin less full!

Mental enrichment can be done DIY or you can buy lots of different toys. We tend to do both. Roo has things like kongs, lickimatts, treat balls and toys such as the Kong wobbler. We have puzzle toys but the things she tends to like most are treats wrapped up in a blanked and sniffing out hidden treats in a room/garden. Roo also loves to do scentwork which is amazing mental enrichment and after 10 minutes, she is knackered.

Adding mental enrichment into your dogs life is thought to reduce unwanted behaviours such as barking and chewing furniture because the dog is more satisfied mentally and therefore tired.

Given that Roo doesn't go out for walks often, we rely heavily on mental enrichment to burn off her energy. For us and Roo, it does that.

If you haven't tried it yet, give it a go! Your dog will thank you.