Duration is often used as a criteria for success of an enrichment intervention, usually a puzzle or food dispensing toy. Guardians might be gleeful that it took their dog x minutes to finish the toy, that it kept them busy for ages.
Sometimes, duration is a more relevant criteria in our programs. We might want to provide the dog with a longer task to encourage independent environmental interaction, to encourage persistence in a task and facilitate stress recovery. The proportion of time the dog engages in behaviours of concern versus healthier behaviours we facilitate might certainly be relevant.
But, duration alone is not necessarily a sign of success, or a sign that the dog is now “enriched”! We want to know about the behaviours that the dog is demonstrating and if those behaviours are contributing to meeting their needs.
And when it comes to duration, we want to know how much time the dog is engaged in enriching behaviours, other than just eating.
To get to a point where the dog is likely to persist for longer durations of behaviours for just a little bit of eating requires shaping. We are not just giving the dog an elaborate puzzle or complicated toy and expecting them to work and work and work. Start simple to ensure the dog has lots of easy wins before gradually upping the challenge.
This compound puzzle appears simple, but there’s lots of behaviours and persistence required to get to the goal.
Start with just the toy that’s stuffed with some lappables, and when the dog is fluent with that, add the bag, and then add the bag to the box.
Fruitless persistance and extended durations busying themselves might not be the key to enrichment. We don’t necessarily want frustration to be behind these endeavours as that might just not be so enriching.
Foraging isn’t just eating
The goals of sniffing and foraging games are not really to maximise eating behaviour. The dog should be doing more behaviours other than the goal behaviour, eating.
What proportion of each food based game is the dog eating for? That should be as little as possible.
Doing the behaviours and the challenges are enriching for dogs. (McGowan et al, 2014)
But that might be frustrating for dogs, particularly novice dogs. That’s because these games or “enrichment” protocols are shaping/teaching exercises. They should be teaching dogs more behaviours that allow them to access reinforcers.
Helping the dog succeed, find the goal and access reinforcement, little and often is teaching them how to play the game. And win!
Don’t think of enrichment exercises as being measured in duration or in terms of the dog busying themselves.
The dog should be learning to apply their behaviours so they have new and numerous ways to access reinforcers (that’s true “choice”) and we must support them.
Helping them win often will encourage them to play more and with practice, your help will become less and less needed. Soon your dog is persisting with appetitive behaviours, with just a little bit of eating, and a whole lot of fun!
Of course, ‘enrichment’ is more than just food based challenges and you can always get lots of practice with 100 Days of Enrichment!
AniEd Ireland 