Dogs just want to have fun! Fun for dogs can come in the form of a short session with a chewbone or a chase after a squirrel in the back yard, or about a million other activities. Activities can provide enrichment, increasing dogs’ quality of life. How do we know their quality of life is improving?
My previous blog post on Dog Enrichment provides an extensive discussion of enrichment. The following are components of activities that are defined as enrichment:
- Stimulating the senses – seeing, hearing, taste, touch and smell
- New types of experiences
- Instinctive, ancestral activities – “letting dogs be dogs”
If an activity includes at least one of these components, it classifies as enrichment. If the activity involves all these features, it qualifies as a really high-quality enrichment device for your dog.
Food Puzzles
Food puzzles have to be one of the easiest enrichment devices for humans to provide. Dogs can enjoy them in any kind of weather, indoors or out.
Dogs will “tell” you what they enjoy. Start stuffing treats into a Kong, and you’ll see interest. Your dog will perk her ears up and come close to smell the delightful aroma. If she’s familiar with Kongs, she’ll look happy and salivate; perhaps dripping long streams of drool onto the floor like our Daisy does as she waits for her Kong to be delivered.
The list of kinds of food puzzles you can create for dogs is nearly infinite. If you take a look at my YouTube channel, you’ll see a few options that are made from household cast-offs. You can purchase a huge variety of puzzles to hide food in, snuffle-mats, and more. Even “slow-feeder” bowls are a type of food puzzle for dogs because they have to work a little, “do something” to get to the food.
Enrichment in the Form of Smells
Have you ever returned home after visiting someone who has a dog? Your dog probably “glues” his nose to your pants leg, taking in the smells of the other dog and the environment he lives in. Cats will do this, too. The behavior is an indication of a pet’s love and need for new smells to enjoy.
The Joy of a Fenced Back Yard
If you have a back yard where your dog can exercise, sniff, and play, you’re ahead of the game. It’s super important to dogs to have choices about how to express themselves. In a fenced back yard, dogs can be off leash and choose to run, rest, or roll. They can take in the smells of local flora and fauna. They can see and hear a variety of stimuli, from plants and birds to vehicles and other inputs, depending on where they live.
Adding Enrichment to Your Yard
Even with wildlife like squirrels, lizards, birds, and bugs crossing your yard every day, your dog will enjoy your additions of new stimuli to the yard. You can hide treats and toys for them to find, and you can even introduce new smells!
You can even create activities like the one above in a small area, like your apartment complex’s doggy play area. The other dogs in your community can enjoy it after you’re done, because the smell will remain for a while!
New Places for Sniffing
Taking your dog to a new yard is one way to give him some new sniffing opportunities. Dog parks are one option, but I am not a fan because you have so little control over what is happening there. Some people are fortunate enough to have a neighborhood dog park where they can count on owners to be responsible for their dogs. But at public dog parks, anyone can bring any dog in. Many dogs are not polite, some are downright non-social, and some are dangerous though their owners may not realize it. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a private dog park your dog could enjoy, where you could relax knowing your dog was safe from intrusion by rude dogs?
Sniffspot
You can rent a private dog park via the Sniffspot app. It’s similar to Airbnb or VRBO for human lodging, but it’s “back yards by the hour” for dogs! The typical fee is $6 – $13 (just my observation in my area) and the spaces vary from a standard-sized suburban yard to acreage. Not all are fenced, but the app allows you to easily tell what qualities and amenities each Sniffspot offers.
Our Sniffspots
We offer 2 Sniffspots to choose from, here in Pasadena, Texas! “The Mannerly Dog Private Dog Park” is about 4500 square feet, fully fenced, with a few pieces of parkour/agility practice equipment. Booking “The Back 40,” also safely fenced, allows you to add another half acre of space. About half of that is under the shade of huge pecan trees, and the other half is wide open for running and sniffing. You’ll still have “The Mannerly Dog Private Dog Park” as your own when you book “The Back 40.”
When you book a Sniffspot, the whole space is yours! Their mission is to provide a place for reactive dogs, who have a hard time being around other dogs and humans, to have fun. As a result, you don’t have to worry about who is going to bring in what dog that could be a danger to yours.
Do You Have Your Own Enrichment Yard?
Some people are lucky enough to have a weekend place where there are new experiences for dogs to enjoy, like swimming in a pond or river, different types of plants and trees to smell, and maybe even different kinds of wildlife to see, hear, and smell. When it’s your yard, you have your own “sniffspot” that you control access to. I can confidently say that my own dogs fully enjoy our Sniffspots when no one else is using them!
Partner With Friends for Enrichment
It would be great to work with a friend or relative to enable “yard swaps” for your dogs! That would be a way to provide free “sniffspots” for both of you, and maybe some other friends, too. If you have this kind of “doggy” community in your life, make a plan and put it into action.
More Benefits of Sniffspot
Do take advantage of a Sniffspot near you. Hosts are very creative in offering a variety of amenities for your dog to enjoy, from wading pools and splashpads to toys and more. Some (like us) will even provide a bathtub and towels so you can take home a clean dog! Birthday parties for your furry companions are another option at some Sniffspots (like ours!)
At a minimum, your dog will enjoy new opportunities to see, hear, and smell things at a Sniffspot. Rolling in different grass can be fun, too! Some of my regular guests live in apartments and their dogs don’t have access to a large space to run. Sniffspot provides a solution to their challenge of providing a real quality-of-life boost for their dogs.
In the realm of training, once your dog has learned a new behavior, it’s important to teach him to perform it in locations other than the one where he learned it. This is called “generalization” in behavior science, and new yards, safely fenced, provide great places to practice your skills between play sessions! Leash skills, tricks, waiting to go through a gate: all are fair game to be practiced in a Sniffspot or any new, safe, area.
Enrichment Covers a Lot of Ground
All animals who live in a human household need enrichment, just like the humans do. No one wants to do the exact same things every day. Enrichment is not just a bonus, it’s a set of needs to be fulfilled. It’s easier than you may think to provide not only chewbones and food puzzles, but a variety of new smells, sights, and sounds to stimulate your dog’s senses.
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