Although the furry best friends we’ve come to know and love are now domesticated and love nothing more than lazing on the sofa in a patch of sunshine they were originally wild animals and as such they have strong, innate instincts for feeding that should be encouraged. Dogs are naturally incredibly social, intelligent and active animals so it’s really important that you provide your dog with a range of safe and suitable opportunities to exercise both physically and mentally.

Enrichment activities enable this to happen – letting dogs explore and utilise their natural instincts. They also prevent boredom, build confidence and teach a variety of skills like problem solving and searching.

When it comes to feeding your pup you could look at a range of ways to encourage these skills and challenge your dog which they’ll ultimately really enjoy.

Here are the ways you can introduce enrichment activities for your dog:

  • Food Enrichment – Encouraging your pup to work for their meals or treats and use all of those innate skills
  • Scent Enrichment – Helping your dog use scent in a more meaningful way giving them new smells and experiences to explore
  • Toy/Play Enrichment – Playing with a range of toys helps you dog build confidence and strengthen your bond
  • Environmental Enrichment – Getting to know and exploring new places stimulating their sight, smell and sound senses

Our fabulous friends over at JP Holistics have written an amazing blog that looks at ditching the dog bowl to replace with food enrichment activities – you can read this here