What is Enrichment?

What is Enrichment?

There has been an increase in the conversation about enrichment for dogs, and other animals that are pets or live in captivity.

This is a great thing to include in an animal’s life.  From what I gather this started out initially focused towards animals who lived in captivity.  They had a fixed environment in captivity which did not compare to the life that they would live in the wild.  To provide mental stimulation, all sorts of things were added to their daily routine to provide them with what they needed as far as foraging for food, and other activities that would take up a lot of their time in the wild.  This has been very successful as animals who live in zoos etc are showing far fewer signs of stress and stereotypical behaviours.

This has also been now rolled over into the pet dog world and there are a million (so it seems!!) different toys and food puzzle activities to help enrich our dog’s lives.

Something that is not talked about a lot is that enrichment that does not always involve an activity.   When you look at an animal in a zoo, the largest proportion of their day is spent doing either nothing, sleeping, mooching about, or hanging out with their family group.

I am seeing more and more dogs that haven’t been taught how to do nothing when their human family is present.  As dog owners we can feel guilty about not doing enough with our dogs.  There is so much social pressure to ‘do’ so much stuff with our dog’s.  As a result, when we have time to spend with our dogs we always try to ‘do’ something.  This can create an expectation for the dog that when a human is present, they will entertain you.  When this doesn’t happen then the dog tries to get things to happen and then we end up with unwanted behaviours that can include barking, whining, mouthing, and jumping at the human in the room.

As far as I am concerned, we need to start talking about companionship being part of the enrichment conversation.  Being, rather than always doing.

Being is a very underrated activity, for people as well as for dogs.  The social pressure is that our value is measured in how much we have done; rest, and being with someone whilst not doing anything, has no real value in society and many of us carry that baggage over into our relationships with our dogs.

Our dogs value time just spent in our company.  We benefit massively in taking time to sit and ‘be’ with our dogs.  This also massively benefits our dogs as well.  We can help their brains to rest back to a calm and regulated state, which they learn is very pleasant and should be the ‘normal’ state for all dogs.  Even busy breeds like Working Cocker Spaniels and Belgian Malinois.

There is this misconception that working breeds need to have massive amounts of stimulation.  I disagree with this.  If you look at a working dog’s working week, the vast majority of it is spent waiting around not doing anything until there is some work to carry out.  Working sheep dogs probably spend more time on the back of a quad bike or in the pick up than they do working sheep.  Working gundogs spend more time on a shoot day waiting to get going than doing their job.  Police dogs spend a lot of their day in their vehicle waiting for something to happen.

What is happening, is that they are hanging out with their owner for large portions of the day watching their handler do things that are nothing to do with the dog.  They love to be included in the ‘job’ even if that is just watching what is going on.

So, can we start to include this in the enrichment conversation, as things seem to have become a little out of balance as to how to include, not just doing, but also being, into our dog’s lives.

Sitting on the sofa, snuggling with your young dog is a very important part of their day – it is enrichment.

A dog being in the kitchen with you, lying on their bed, watching you, without getting underfoot – this is also enrichment.

A dog lying on their bed in your office whilst you work – this is enrichment.

Sitting in the garden having a coffee with your dog hanging out with you – this is enrichment too!

So how do we get to this when we have inadvertently created expectations in our dog that is causing issues?

I tend to do something along these lines: –

I go through Susan Garrett’s Crate games online. This teaches the dog about the rules of the crate, what works and what doesn’t and that there’s value in being in the crate.

Once I’ve done that, I then build a routine of some crate time morning and afternoon, with me in the room, doing something, computer work, cooking, reading a book, watching TV. Something so I’m obviously doing something else.

It is generally a good idea to do this after exercise so that we know any noise is not due to toileting issues and the dog will naturally want to rest.  Set up for success.

If they are quiet and settled then periodically reward, v low key, just drop treat in the crate without eye contact or engaging with the dog.

If they’re noisy then cover completely. Once quiet, uncover, again no engagement. If they stay quiet for a while then reward again.

Most demand barking is lack of understanding when activity is not on the cards.

Once they’re in a good routine and understanding how to chill and switch off then progress to door open on the crate and eventually just a bed.