Animal enrichment means meeting your pet's natural needs by recreating behaviors they'd perform in the wild—like digging, hunting, and scavenging. It's a mental exercise for animals, similar to how humans do puzzles or read: smelling, licking, chewing, and chasing all stimulate your pet's mind.

• Social – interaction with humans/animals
• Cognitive – problem-solving and training
• Physical – exercise and movement
• Feeding – food puzzles and foraging
• Toy – interactive play objects
• Sensory – smell, sight, sound, touch

• Prevents problem behaviors – Gives pets a healthy outlet for natural instincts, reducing destructive habits like chewing furniture.
• Builds brain power – Sharpens skills and builds confidence, supporting long-term health.
• Provides mental exhaustion – Complements physical exercise, leaving pets satisfied and calm.
• Offers low-impact activity – Great alternative when injury, weather, or travel limit exercise.
• Creates well-adjusted animals – Boosts confidence, social skills, and natural behaviors for happier pets.

Pets deprived of enrichment may develop depression, destructive behavior, excessive barking, escape attempts, or stress-related issues.

Sniffing on walks

 When taking dogs out on walks it's important to remember to let them sniff. Even if it takes 15 minutes to get 100 meters that’s okay, as long as they get to sniff! Sniffing can be a calming exercise as well as exhausting- 15 minutes of sniffing can equate to 45 minutes of physical exercise!

 Studies involving humans have shown that getting out into nature (not just street walks or manicured parks) have a positive effect on mental health, we can transfer this to the animals that we live with. Going on trail hikes/walks or walks through nature reserves provide an opportunity to increase mental health and well-being (not only for your dog!).

So instead of a ‘mindless march’ down the footpath let your dog stop and sniff or even choose their own direction (given the dog is not pulling and it is safe to do so).

Ditch the food bowl

 Feeding meals without the use of food bowls is the first step, of many, to increase the enrichment for your dogs to help meet their basic needs and support their mental well-being. 

 Meal times provide the perfect opportunity to provide food enrichment to your dog to enable them to scavenge for their food, use their noses and their brains! This could look like feeding meals in Kongs, through puzzle feeders, snuffle mats or food dispensing toys, or even getting creative by hiding food in paper rolls, boxes or other homemade ideas. It can also be just as simple as scattering kibble through the grass in the backyard or hiding food around the backyard or house. 

 You can also feed your dog a meal throughout a training session. 

We encourage you to use every mealtime to enrich your dog’s lives!  

Snuffle mats

Snuffle mats are a creative sniffing mat for dogs, it allows for natural foraging skills by looking for snacks or small toys or scents hidden in the mat, it can also slow down their eating speed and help to consume their extra energy.

Snuffle Mats on Amazon.com

Lickimats

Lickimats are a great way to help your dog participate in licking which is a naturally calming and soothing behaviour.  

Chewing 

 Chewing is a self-soothing behaviour for our dogs, which releases endorphins, so it can be beneficial to provide your dog with suitable things to chew on. This could be a stuffed frozen Kong, a bully stick or pigs’ ear, broccoli stem, carrot, etc.  

Nosework activities

Getting your dog to do scentwork or nosework activities can be a great way for your dog to use that amazing nose, build confidence and independence, use their brain and relax. 

Nose works is a great activity to do with your dog as it helps your dog to; relax, problem solve, gain confidence and independence and it is exhausting in a great way! 

Step 1: 

1. Put your dog in a different room
2. Lay out between 4-10 boxes/containers in a line
3. Put a tasty (smelly) treat into each box
4. Let your dog into the room to investigate and find the treats
5. Each time your finds a treat, give them a second one where the first one was (this helps them wait where they found the treat)
6. Repeat until they beeline to the boxes to investigate them every time
7. Slowly start reducing the number of treats in the boxes to a ¾, then ½ and then a ¼ (which is our goal)

Listen to all that sniffing! That’s your dog’s nose working. Each sniff is helping your dog relax, learn, and problem-solve.

Training

 Training is a great way to provide mental enrichment and support your dog’s learning. We recommend multiple short sessions throughout the day, consisting of just 3–4 repetitions per exercise. This keeps learning clear, fun, and achievable without overwhelming your dog.

You can easily build training into your daily routine by setting aside 5–10 minutes, 2–3 times per day. Consistent short sessions are more effective than long, infrequent training and help maintain your dog’s focus and engagement.