Every day you give away one or two food bowls full of food… absolutely free! Food your dog would love to work for. Skipping the bowl and instead using the food for training and mental enrichment makes your dog happy, fit and tired.
Integrated training every day
If you go to a zoo around lunchtime, you’ll see monkeys, bears, and penguins being fed from strange contraptions. This is what we call enrichment.
We have long realized that animals in captivity have a need to receive this kind of mental enrichment, but unfortunately, feeding our dogs has become a simple routine that does not provide much brain exercise at all.
By thinking about what your dog needs to work on behaviourally and instead training this for your dog’s daily kibble (or fresh food), your dog automatically receives mental enrichment that makes your dog happy and tired, while you are one step closer to a more trained dog.
Enrichment exercises
Sometimes you don’t have time to train your dog, and that’s ok because there are several mentally enriching activities that don’t require your involvement.
These can be toys, bought and homemade, where your dog has to work for his food. Or simple games that you set up which let your dog search for their food. This is something that all dogs love!
The best example is a stuffed Kong with frozen raw food. This is one of the best passive exercises you can give your dog.
Another favorite is scatter feeding. Just throw a handful of food on the lawn and let your dog search. Perfect for building both patience and optimism.
I hope this has inspired you to do more enrichment with your dog!
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