Resources > Health & Husbandry > Environmental Enrichment

Environmental Enrichment: a.k.a Boredom Busters

Once upon a time zoo animals were kept in bare cages and fed predictably and boringly from bowls. A multitude of health and behavioural problems were the result. Modern zoos such as Melbourne Zoo implement environmental enrichment strategies to keep their animals mentally and physically healthy.
Environmental enrichment aims to provide captive animals with sensory and physical stimulation that is as close as possible to what they would get in a more natural environment.

Dog ownership in our busy modern world means that our dogs are often alone or left to their own devices for long stretches of time. Just like with zoo animals, boredom and under-stimulation can lead to range of behaviour problems in dogs, such as excessive barking, digging, property destruction and depression, to name just a few.

The good news is that there is plenty you can do to enrich your dog's life - and a lot of it is neither expensive nor time-consuming.

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Better ways with food

Animals in the wild spend a lot of their physical and mental energy finding and eating food. If your dog eats dry food out of a bowl, his daily ration of food will take him less than a minute to consume. Why not provide his daily calories in a way that keeps him stimulated and entertained?
There are two main ways of using food to enrich your dog's life:

• Positive training with food (and other rewards) will stimulate your dog's mind and improve your bond. 
  
• Food in food dispensers or scattered will extend the time it takes your dog to eat and stimulate his mind.  

Cheap & easy home made options

• Scatter dry food in you garden – your dog will love using his nose to hunt for every little bit.
  
• Place some food in cardboard boxes such as egg cartons, pizza boxes, buttermilk containers or cereal boxes – your dog will work out how to use his paws and teeth to extract his food.
  
• Wrap some dry food in newspaper “parcels” and stick them into cardboard boxes for some extra shredding fun.
  

-> I recommend against using plastic containers such as water bottles, unless your dog is an extremely mild chewer. They can easily splinter and chewed edges can hurt your dogs mouth, or pieces can be ingested.

Commercial food dispensers

In addition to the easy home-made options above, there are many food dispensing toys you can buy that help keep your dog entertained, such as Kongs, Wobblers, treat balls and various food puzzles. The sky's the limit!

Tips for using food dispensing toys

• Make it easy at first: loosely fill the Kong, leave the egg carton open, etc. so that your dog will have success and get hooked. See the Kong-filling video on the right!
• As your dog gets more interested make it a bit harder so that the enjoyment of extracting the food lasts longer.
• Rotate your dispensers for novelty.
• Make sure your dog actually likes what's in there!

Other Environmental Enrichment ideas

There are many other ways in which you can alleviate your dog's boredom when you are unable to be there for him.
Here is one Handout on Environmental Enrichment for Dogs with plenty of ideas.
Don't forget to contact us if you have any questions!