Dog Ownership & Training

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All dogs have some level of physical and mental energy, prey drive, and anxiety. In order to keep your dog happy and healthy, it is crucial to ensure you are always providing an outlet for each of these. The easiest and most versatile solution is providing mental enrichment for your dog. Without an outlet for these innate needs, dogs experience excessive stress and will ultimately resort to stereotypy—ritualistic behavior patterns encoded in an animal's brain that are performed compulsively when their brain is broken due to stress—and impulsive and/or aggressive behaviors. Accommodating these natural instinctual behaviors is good for your dog's mental health and (contrary to popular belief) will not teach your dog that it is ok to destroy your house and belongings (dogs are smart and can efficiently learn which items are appropriate for them to destroy and which items are off-limits). Enrichment comes in a variety of forms in order to fulfill a variety of needs, but here we list some essentials:

Shredding

Dogs love to destroy things. If you provide a productive outlet for their innate need to shred objects, you won't have to worry about your dog eating the drywall. Cardboard is an excellent choice for most dogs, because it is safe for their teeth and easy to clean up. When shredding an object results in tasty treats for your dog to eat, it will also fulfill their need to kill and consume prey. This is more important for some dogs than others, but it provides fun mental enrichment no matter your dog's level of prey drive. We create enrichment boxes by placing Zukes or chopped hot dogs in a small cardboard box (or a toilet paper tube with both ends twisted) so our dogs have something to shred and consume when we are not home. If you have multiple dogs and any of them are resource guarders, keep them separate or refrain from filling the box with treats. If any of your dogs might eat the cardboard scraps (most don't but some do), use something edible instead (like a frozen bell pepper).

Licking

Lick mats are very therapeutic to dogs because licking is a self-soothing behavior (part of the reason licking is one of the appeasement behaviors). If you spread peanut butter, cream cheese, spray cheese, and/or braunschweiger on a lick mat and freeze it, your dog will have something to do for quite a while. If you have multiple dogs and resource guarding is an issue, make sure you separate them first. If your dog tends to chew up and swallow pieces of rubber toys, find a lick mat that is too hard to chew through or completely edible.

Foraging

Foraging is another mentally enriching activity for dogs. To give your dog a foraging opportunity, you can throw kibble in the grass and let them go find it, or you can buy or make a snuffle mat so your dog can forage inside your home. 

Slow Feeders

Slow feeder bowls are excellent for dogs who eat too fast and risk aspiration, but they are also good for any other dog because they provide mental enrichment as your dog has to work for their food. If your dog becomes frustrated with a slow feeder, try an easier one or put half their meal in a regular bowl and the other half in the slow feeder. If your dog starts chewing on the bowl after finishing their meal, make sure you make it a habit to always remove the bowl as soon as they are done eating. If your dog is a severe resource guarder and will become stressed if you remove the bowl, find a slow feeder that cannot be chewed up or get the dog to leave the crate/room after eating and remove the bowl when the dog cannot see you.

Kongs

Kongs provide hours of enrichment if you use them the way we do. We stuff them with something tasty and then freeze them, so our dogs spend hours licking and squeezing the Kong until they have consumed everything we stuffed in there. We have tried a variety of things to stuff in there (wet food, wet/dry mix, smoothies, etc.) but we usually plug the small hole with peanut butter, fill the kong with a pumpkin/yogurt mixture (excellent for digestion), and plug the big hole with wet food.

Kong Wobblers and Puzzle Feeders

A Wobbler is like a more extreme version of a slow feeder—it provides an enriching (frustrating for some dogs) experience for meal time and makes it take way longer for your dog to eat their food. These are great for dogs who are super smart and/or do not get frustrated easily, and they can provide something for your dog to do while you aren't home without giving them extra calories to eat.

Other Enrichment

Literally anything fun/enjoyable for your dog is enrichment, and what works best varies for every dog, but the options listed above are pretty universal and every dog should have them.

Jolly Balls are great for dogs with high herding drive, but they may need you to help them figure out how to use it first. Some dogs who love herding will chase a Jolly Ball around the yard for hours without getting tired of it.