Welcome to Day 64 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

DIY Nail Care

At a glance:

• build a nail file and teach your dog to file their nails themselves
• most suitable for the front nails, which often are the ones that need most care
• many, many dogs find having their feet handled or touched very unpleasant
• improve your pet’s comfort with having feet handled and with the presence of nail clipping equipment
• social and cognitive based enrichment
• although children can make great dog trainers with the right guidance, these exercises are best established by the adults in the household
  Children might help by preparing treats for practicing this exercise.
• these exercises can be practiced in individual sessions of no more than 30 seconds-1 minute at a time; have as many sessions as you can!

What do you need?

• food rewards – you can use your dog’s regular food, a training mix, commercial treats, home prepared treats such as cut up meats, cheese, vegetables or homemade treats such as liver or tuna cake
• a lappable stuffable (see ideas from Day 1)
• DIY nail file stuff: board, such as a chopping board, duct tape, sand paper (of different types)
• a cloth such as a face cloth, tea towel or similar
• stairs, steps, a stool or chair that your dog can get their front feet up on
• nail clipping tools such as clippers, files, grinders

Many many pet dogs find having their feet handled and their nail clips strongly aversive. This might manifest in the dog moving away, aggressing, licking and struggling when handling is attempted.

This strong response may have come about because of some bad experience, such as a nail being cut too short, resulting in bleeding and pain. And is very likely to be associated with the awkward and often uncomfortable restraint used when clipping nails or carrying out other foot care. Lots of dogs find the noise of clippers or grinders frightening or startling too.
We have made everything about the whole scenario scary!

Most pet owners will overestimate their pets’ comfort levels in lots of situations and are very likely to presume that their pet is “fine”, even when the dog is showing mere tolerance…most dogs do a wonderful job of merely tolerating human behaviour. Our goal is to achieve more than just tolerance, we want joy!

But, even where fear or discomfort isn’t at the root of the dog’s behaviour, these exercises are helpful in teaching dogs about choice and in teaching appropriate alternative behaviour during handling and nail care.

Just like Day 3 and Day 17 we are going to ask you to really observe your dog’s behaviour and think about consent.
It’s not our pets’ obligation to consent to handling or physical manipulation; our pets are individuals who have likes and dislikes, and good and bad days. They are allowed to say “STOP!” and “WAIT!” if they need to.
And what’s more, teaching them that they can consent, or not, is confidence boosting and bond boosting. You become a beacon of trust, you become predictable and reliable.

I have included these exercises in our project because enrichment is about giving animals skills that help them cope better with their day to day lives (in captivity), along with establishing predictability and controlability.

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Enrichment Goals:

• to teach dogs to use a self-nail-file
• to improve the dog’s comfort with the handling and procedures involved in nail care
• to teach the dog that they can consent to, delay or refuse handling and manipulation
• reduce stress associated with loss of predictability and controlability
• to encourage a dance of communication, consent, and connection between dog and human
• to build that bond between dog and human
• to have a fun and rewarding experience in social situations, between dogs and humans

While training exercises certainly fall into the cognitive enrichment category, they can provide so much more.

This process highlights the complex social relationships forged between humans and companion animals. It’s a level of social enrichment that’s tricky to replicate.

By helping the dog learn that they have control over what happens them, in interactions with humans, the world becomes a safer place for them.

When we talk about enrichment being enriching, this is never more clear than when we start to teach behaviours intentionally. It’s the human’s job to set the dog up for success by making sure the behaviour is doable and that rewards are fast-flowing.

There’s no test at the end of this and you and your pet are not under any pressure. Learn to enjoy the time together, whether you achieve the goal behaviour or not. That’s what’s enriching here…the social and cognitive outlets such exercises provide (for both species).

What goals can you add to this list for your pets?

How can we achieve these goals?

• work with toys or other rewards that your dog enjoys – associate each handling interaction with a reward and after many pairings, handling becomes just as enjoyable
• make it very easy for your dog by gradually adding handling or pressure
• watch your dog closely for any signs of reluctance; they might go still, or duck or lean away, they may lick at or mouth your hand or tool, they might pull away
• if the animal shows the slightest reluctance, stop immediately
• review your approach and don’t go quite so far next time
• working like this teaches the dog that, to object, they only need show minor discomfort because you are listening; to gain relief, they don’t need to growl, snarl or snap
• keep it simple and split behaviour – reward approximations toward the final behaviour, rather than hoping that your dog will offer the goal behaviour quickly
• take your time and work in many short sessions
• try for 30 seconds at a time, 5-10 rewards each session, and then take a break
• plan each session – what behaviours are you looking for and rewarding?
• watch the clips and try out the exercise
• portion out your dog’s daily food and allot some for training exercises

• make a training mix by adding in something yummier and leaving it all to ‘cook’ together in the fridge; the smells will mingle, harder foods will soften a little, and everything will become more valuable and rewarding

• remember to adjust your pet’s diet accordingly to accommodate the extra calories from treats added, where relevant
• split your food rewards into little bowls with just the right number of rewards in each bowl so that you are ready to go; stick bowls of rewards in places where you may need to teach and reward behaviours so that you have rewards ready to go

If you are feeding wet or fresh foods, cut up small or mash to a paste and present on a wooden spoon or spatula. Alternatively you can freeze in small ice cube trays or a pyramid baking tray so that you can use small portions and individual treats.

• for some of these exercises, I love to use a lappable stuffable (see Day 1) – reward the dog by allowing them to have a few licks and then withdraw the toy

What adjustments will you make for your pets?

Applications of foot-handling comfort:

These exercises continue to build your dog’s comfort in all sorts of situations and interactions with humans. This means that these interactions become safer and more pleasant for everyone.

Pretty much every dog will require some sort of handling and foot care, often regularly, and sometimes in an emergency.

Dogs, when super stressed, either go very still and quiet, or move about, struggle and aggress (or somewhere in between). When they are still and quiet, they are presumed to be ‘well behaved’ and tolerant. When they struggle and aggress, we label them ‘difficult’, ‘vicious’ or ‘dominant’, none of which is accurate.

Either way, this isn’t pleasant for our dogs and as the humans (with the big primate brains), we know that our dogs will need to endure such handling throughout their lives. It’s our job to prepare them for this so it’s a little easier all round.

Helping the dog feel predictability and controlability has wider positive implications, with some research suggesting that these effects generalise to other areas of the animals’ lives. Reducing stress is a good thing!

When we work on handling and husbandry procedures, we establish comfort at different levels that range from management and distraction, to building comfort, to teaching cooperative behaviours.
Throughout our 100 day project, we will introduce exercises from these categories.

Enrichment Options

We are going to start off really easy and get the dog doing all the work…well after you do some crafting…

Making a DIY Nail File & Training the Dog to Use it

Start by making your nail file board by securing a coarse sheet of sand paper to get started with. Finer sand paper can be used to maintain nails length and shape.

This clip outlines how to make the board and introduce the basics to the dog. Work on this over several short sessions to establish these behaviours.

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This works really well for the front nails and is now the only nail clipping Decker does. I have always kept his nails pretty short with clippers and files but this is much more comfortable for both him and I!

Here’s Darla, a complete novice, just minutes after the first presentation of the DIY nail board. With clear teaching, a dog will pick this up quickly and with lots of enthusiasm:

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Most dogs will drive off their back legs so will often not require too much clipping or filing of the nails on the back feet. But this depends on the conformation of the dog and the shape of their foot. Setting up a back nail file is a little trickier and I haven’t really worked on this with Deck, so I found this clip with a search, giving a nice outline and set up for rear nail filing.

Building comfort with nail husbandry

The covering here on #100days is pretty basic, plus we just have one day to get going on this and, for the most part, creating the most positive, joyous response to foot handling and related procedures requires months of work (usually).

For more on this and tons of support, check out the Nail Maintenance Facebook group for lots of excellent resources, ideas, tips and tricks in a study group format, so will be easier to track your progress.

Or you might like to sign up for a full course that will help you help your dog become more comfortable with nail clipping: Lori Nanan’s Nailed It course.

Creating a CER

Throughout these exercises we are attempting to establish a CER or Conditioned Emotional Response. This means that our dogs learn that one stimulus makes another very reliably happen; reaching toward the dog’s foot, for example, makes yummy treats happen.

A CER helps the dog feel differently about a particular situation. A dog may already have developed a negative CER toward having his foot reached toward due to pain or discomfort during nail clipping. To help form a positive CER, we must undo the negative one (by not exposing the dog to that situation) while building a new, positive association.

This requires lots and lots and lots of practice. In the case of an established negative CER, it might take many tens of thousands of repetitions over many months to turn it around.

We are always following the rules that we have laid out for our dogs:

• building progress gradually
• allowing the dog decide how comfortable they are, or not
• always pairing any move with something yummy, no matter what
• listening to the dog

For a CER to be established, we must also get the sequence right:

• reach toward the dog and then reach toward the treat
• reaching toward the dog makes you produce a treat
• if you reach toward the treat at the same time as you reach toward the dog, or if you have the treat out and visible while you reach toward the dog, the dog might not even notice you reaching toward them so no association will be formed

Decker recently suffered a very serious injury to his toe that required regular dressing and bandage chances, sometimes daily.

From the beginning, I made bandage change time a big chicken party! Me preparing his bandages and setting up at our bandage station made a lot of chicken tossing happen. That’s right, I established a CER to bandage prep so that even if dressing changing itself was uncomfortable he always looks forward to the process.

Note that when he jumps up he nudges the laid out dressings and not the lunchbox of chicken…bandages make chicken happen!

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Even now, months later, if I take out cotton wool, he’s up and super excited, such is the power of a well established CER!

The key to improvement with nail comfort exercises is to practice in lots of short sessions everyday.

If your dog does get excited after these training exercises, help them come down again by working on a stuffable or some snuffling.

Where a negative CER has already been established, it can be a little trickier to get going but you’ve come to the right place to get started!
Right now, when you indicate that the part of the nail care procedure, to which your dog has developed a negative CER, is about to be revealed will kick off an internal emotional and stress response in your dog’s brain and body. This cascades into the behavioural response that you observe. Every time this happens, the scenario is further confirmed as being negative, scary, choice-less and unpleasant to the brain and it will do its best to help the body avoid exposure. In other words, every exposure is probably making it worse.

To turn that around, there are some essentials:

• stop the rehearsal of the scary situation

This might mean forgoing nail clipping for the foreseeable future or, where this may affect the dog’s health, having the dog’s nail clipped while sedated by the vet.

Your dog is anticipating when the scary stuff is about to happen so their negative response is starting earlier and earlier on in the process. With more exposure to stress, the brain becomes more sensitive to stress and gets better at anticipating stressful scenarios to allow the body to avoid them.

• use new nail clipping stuff
• work in a new scenario than before – make it all different
• start with the new equipment more gradually so that it never leads to scaring or stressing your dog
• use HIGH value food rewards
• as above, get your timing right
• create a positive CER to each of the stages involved in nail care

For example, this might include:

• the sight of nail clipping equipment, such as nail clippers, files or grinders
• you holding nail clipping equipment

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• the sound of nail clipping equipment

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In that clip, we are clipping matchsticks with the nail clippers – each clip = a treat.
If using a nail grinder, such as a Dremel, you can begin to associate the sound of an electric toothbrush with a treat.

• holding your dog’s foot
• manipulating their foot

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• nail clipping equipment approaching and touching the foot
• clipping or filing the nail and building the duration

Each of these stages must be worked on individually and carefully paired with high value rewards to create that important CER.

Start at the point at which your dog is comfortable; that might mean the nail clippers on the other side of the room and each time the dog looks, you make a treat happen.

You might have several different exercises happening at the same time, but in separate sessions.

Using distraction

For some dogs, you might be able to give them a yummy lappable to work on while you file their nails, rather than clip them.

Be very clear here, this may only be appropriate for some dogs who are largely comfortable with foot handling and nail manipulation. This just keeps the rewards flowing during the procedure in a more efficient manner because you are using both hands already.

• use a spatula, dipped in something irresistible like pate, cable tied to the leg of a chair or table so it’s easy to fit and remove for regular use

Stick a dipped wooden spoon into the plug hole of the bath or shower for your dog to work on while you groom them there:

• line or stuff a Kong toy or other stuffable and wedge in between the sofa cushions; this will be at head height for a lot of medium and large sized dogs

Use a stuffed or line stuffable between your knees to carry out husbandry procedures, such as eye cleaning:

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• smear the sides of the bath or the walls around a grooming table so that your dog can lap, while you groom and bathe

I found this vegetable cleaner, with a little suction cup, in a home wares store for €1.50 and it’s been really effective for keeping dogs occupied and happy for grooming and bathing. I jam in some pate and freeze it; there are two sides to keep them interested:

You can also buy stuffable toys with suction cups for dogs like the Chase n’ Chomp Sticky Bone or Licky Mats, and there are lots of other types and designs. The suction cup is handy for in the bath and most will connect readily to slick walls or doors.

A Snuffle Mat or similar feeder can be placed on a stool or chair for the dog to work on while you groom them too.

With distraction, the dog may not be as comfortable during the procedure as we would like. I believe it to be safer to file the dog’s nails with a stronger nail file such as those made for filing acrylic nails or similar.
Filing is less likely to cause injury, such as cutting the dog’s quick, so is safer when using a distraction approach to rewarding the dog.

Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!

Welcome to Day 63 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

Every Sunday during #100daysofenrichment is Sunday Funday! This means you and your pet repeat your favourite challenge or challenges from the week.

You can do it exactly as you did first time round, you can try a different option, build on your progress already established, reinvent and rejig it…what ever you want to do with the last week of challenges!

Day 57 Rollercoaster Games

Day 58 Paper

Day 59 Engagement Games

Day 60 “Middle”

Day 61 Freestyle Friday

Day 62 Sniffing Saturday: Searches & Scavenger Hunts

Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!

Welcome to Day 62 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

Searches & Scavenger Hunts

Saturdays during #100daysofenrichment are all about emphasising the dog in all our dogs; all about sniffing and doing dog things.

Let’s have some fun setting up some searches and scavenger hunts for treats, toys or stuffables.

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You can set up simple or more elaborate searches, hiding just one food item, or hiding one or more food puzzles, like in the video clip above.

These can be set up any place, any time, in the house, or out on walks. Your dog is already really good at finding things with  but now we are going to ask him to search for something we know is hidden.

Add to fetch games, or even better, play toy searching rather than repetitive fetch games

Searching for a toy is likely much more beneficial that strenuous, repetitive fetch games. Even slotting a search in to fetch games, every two or three throws is a nice way of varying the game, better maintaining healthier arousal levels and giving your dog a whole-brain (and body) work out!

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Use snow or long grass to really challenge your dog’s nose and searching skills!

Safety First

When choosing a search area, check it carefully before bringing the dog in and beginning the search.

Check for cables, sockets, glass, sharp objects or corners, machinery or moving parts, nails or staples, hot surfaces, slippery surfaces, hazardous substances, distractions from scents; even things like doors or steps can cause the dog to bring their head up suddenly, striking it.

Always play safe!

Searches

You can hide your dog’s food, treats, favourite toy or even Stuffables!

Keep it simple, and think of how the air might flow through a space to understand how your dog will detect and narrow in on odour. We talk a lot about this on Day 55 too!

As always, keep the challenge do-able for your pet. Hide one high value food or item in an easy accessible spot to get started with. The more fun and winning your dog has with this game, the better they will be able to persist and work on multiple and harder hides.

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Search for stuffables, busy boxes, chews or any of the puzzles we have worked on throughout #100days.

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Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts are a search with several prizes, so they often suit food more than toys.

You can scavenger hunt indoors, hiding small piles of food rewards or even just one treat, behind different pieces of furniture, doors and so on. Let your dog loose and guide them to any hides they miss.

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Outdoor scavenger hunts can create extra challenge and it can take a bit of practice for the dog to learn to keep searching for multiple hides.

Drop a treat in every couple of steps that you take; start with straight lines or gentle arcs but once your dog is methodically searching, you can add turns and bends.

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Sniffing for food

Ideally, we would like our dogs to be sniffing out their regular meals, as much as possible. But, some dogs will need a little help to get them going and we can have our dog sniffing for treats too!

Kibble is a pretty versatile food type for enrichment type feeding, and works well for this exercise.

You can add kibble in with other yummier treats and toss those. Or you can make a Training Mix so that kibble smells and tastes yummier, but without having to add extra calories or other foods, should the dog be sensitive or restricted.

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You can improve the smell/taste of kibble by grilling it a little, so that it becomes crunchier and oilier. You might also soak it in stock or other flavouring.

Wet and fresh foods can be a little more challenging:

• Fresh meats and meat mixes (e.g. raw and home prepared diets) – cut up into small pieces, boiled or baked, frozen in small ice cube trays or pyramid baking mats for small individual treats.
  Alternatively, you could use dried or semi-moist meats and cut them into small pieces for tossing. (Note that you feed a smaller volume of dried or dehydrated foods as they are more concentrated.)

• Wet feeds (e.g. canned foods) – frozen in small ice cube trays or pyramid baking mats for small, individual treats.

Don’t forget fruit and vegetables too, if you’re dog likes them. Frozen peas are one of Decker’s favourites for sniffing!

Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!

 

Welcome to Day 61 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

Freestyle Friday

Now it’s your turn to get creative! Every Friday is Freestyle Friday. We’ll give you the ingredients for a puzzle or enrichment device and you build it.

Rules:

• you must use all the ingredients
• you can add anything else you like, or nothing at all
• whatever you come up with must be enriching

Day 61 Ingredients

You must use the following:

• tubs, big tubs, small tubs, any tub will do!

You can add food or toys or anything else appropriate, if you like. Or you can use this as it is.

We can’t wait to see what fun and brain games you and your pet get up to with this one!

Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!

 

 

 

 

Hard to believe we are talking about week 10 already!

Keep up with all the resources and challenges relating to #100daysofenrichment here
and join our Facebook group too!

All challenges are presented with multiple options so you won’t lose out if you don’t have one or two of the items.

For Week 10 you will need:

• a variety of different treats & toys
• Stuffables
• dog lead, cord, rope or similar
• cloths
• nail clippers/grinder
• plastic milk bottles
• chopping board or similar flat, sturdy board
• sand paper, of various types
• toys with holes
• duct tape
• high value, smelly treats
• cardboard wine bottle carrier
• hunting scents such as this
• fabric/paper shopping bags

And for Freestyle Friday you will design your own enrichment device with the following ingredients:

• Pringles tubes or similar

We have lots more fun and brain games for you for next week. Start getting ready…

Subscribe to this blog so that each day’s plan is delivered right into your inbox each morning.

 

 

Welcome to Day 60 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

“Middle”

At a glance:

• last time, Day 52, we did your favourite ‘trick’ behaviour, today you will be working on MY favourite!
• “middle” is often referred to as ‘peek-a-boo’ and involves the dog moving around one of your legs so that they stand or sit between your legs, facing the same direction as you
• trick-training is often approached differently and thought of differently
• there’s no such thing as “just a trick – it’s ALL tricks to the dog
• this simple ‘trick’ can be applied to lots of real life situations, as well as being a cute ‘peek-a-boo’ part piece
• get the family involved in this one – children can be great dog trainers with lots of guidance, and lots of these behaviours are child-friendly, and make maintaining the peace with kids and K9s easier.
  Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
• training exercises can be practiced in individual sessions of no more than 30 seconds at a time; have as many sessions as you can!

What do you need?

• food rewards – you can use your dog’s regular food, a training mix, commercial treats, home prepared treats such as cut up meats, cheese, vegetables or homemade treats such as liver or tuna cake
• toys or access to anything that your dog will work for

I am not a massive ‘trick training’ fan. But, I do love the enthusiasm and lightness that people bring to teaching trick behaviours – it’s seen as frivolous and fun…all teaching should be approached in the same way because it’s all tricks to the dogs.

Enrichment Goals:

Teaching simple behaviours, without the pressure of OBEDIENCE, brings benefits to both ends of the lead.

For the dog:

• confidence & relationship building
• mental exercise
• appropriate physical outlets, rehab & conditioning
• fun, positive associations with training
• more relaxed approach to training
• break up duration behaviours
• might improve the image of a dog
• the dog learns how to learn – this is just another puzzle to your dog…”how do I train the human to make rewards available?!“…it’s all human training, for dogs!
• to teach the dog that their human will ask for behaviour and will make sure reinforcement is available – this reduces stress by improving predictability and controlability

For the human:

• lots of more practical applications – real life situations
• might facilitate diversions, stress-reduction, focus & engagement, managing behaviour
• fun, positive associations with training
• improved approach to training
• more relaxed approach to training
• involve kids in teaching appropriate tricks
• improves trainer skills – mechanical skills, observation skills, planning
• learn how your dog learns

While training exercises certainly fall into the cognitive enrichment category, they can provide so much more.

Providing dogs with cues allows for a complex level of communication between two species; you are merely requesting that the dog perform behaviour (he already knows how to do the behaviour…they can already drop things) and that request comes with a contract. Respond appropriately to this signal and rewards are coming your way. That’s the deal…that’s what being a good teacher is about – keeping your word and making it easy for your dog to train you.

This forges the most healthy of relationships between our two species. This is a level of social enrichment that’s tricky to replicate.

When we talk about enrichment being enriching, this is never more clear than when we start to teach behaviours intentionally. It’s the human’s job to set the dog up for success by making sure the behaviour is doable and that rewards are fast-flowing.

There’s no test at the end of this and you and your pet are not under any pressure. Learn to enjoy the time together, whether you achieve the goal behaviour or not. That’s what’s enriching here…the social and cognitive outlets such exercises provide (for both species).

What goals can you add to this list for your pets?

How can we achieve these goals?

• although you can use any reward that your dog will work for, using small food rewards that are quick to eat are best for these exercises so we can have lots of fast repetitions
• keep it simple and split behaviour – reward approximations toward the final behaviour, rather than hoping that your dog will offer the goal behaviour quickly
• take your time and work in many short sessions
• try for 30 seconds at a time, 5-10 rewards each session, and then take a break
• portion out your dog’s daily food and allot some for training exercises

• make a training mix by adding in something yummier and leaving it all to ‘cook’ together in the fridge; the smells will mingle, harder foods will soften a little, and everything will become more valuable

• remember to adjust your pet’s diet accordingly to accommodate the extra calories from treats added, where relevant
• split your food rewards into little bowls with just the right number of rewards in each bowl so that you are ready to go; stick bowls of rewards in places where you may need to teach and reward behaviours so that you have rewards ready to go

If you are feeding wet or fresh foods, cut up small or mash to a paste and present on a wooden spoon or spatula. Alternatively you can freeze in small ice cube trays or a pyramid baking tray so that you can use small portions and individual treats.

What adjustments will you make for your pets?

Applications of the “middle” trick

I prefer to approach tricks from the applicable point of view.

How can these behaviours offer real-life benefits?

What behaviours can I teach, with a tricks-attitude, that really benefit the dog’s experience?

I want to concentrate on teaching behaviours that benefit the animal, that they might choose as behavioural solutions in their day to day life. “Middle” can be a simple solution for lots of applications.

Enrichment Options

Middle can be applied as a cute trick, to position or line-up the dog, as part of play, games and enthusiasm-building, to restrain or confine the dog, to divert the dog and in husbandry situations.

Option 1 Teach “middle”

To teach this simple behaviour we will use a technique called luring. This means to guide the dog into position with a food reward held at his nose. The dog is rewarded with the lure when he gets in position.

Start with a food reward in each hand. The reward in your right hand is the lure and the one in your left hand is the lure.

• stand with your legs slightly wider than shoulder width apart
• hold the lure under your thumb and show it to your dog
• move your right hand out and around your right leg
• if needed, reward the dog, by dropping the lure, just behind your knees, to start with
• when they eat that treat, drop the treat from your left hand just in front of you so that the dog moves through your legs
• after a few trials, stop dropping the reward behind you and instead only reward with the treat in front

Soon you will be able to get rid of that lure in your right hand. Just move your empty lure hand as you did and your dog will follow it.

Continue to reward with the treat in your left hand.

The first minute of this clip demonstrates the step-by-step to teach this behaviour:

Clip

Option 2 Middle for focus

Once your dog is moving into middle position, without a lure being needed, we can begin to adapt this trick behaviour to lots of different applications.

To build duration in middle position, feed the dog in position, rather than tossing the treat to the floor with left hand.

Feed up high and your dog might find it easier to sit; you could ask them to sit too. Feed five treats in position and then toss one out so that you an repeat.

Clip

You will notice that your dog is immediately focusing on you when they move into middle position.

Practice in lots of different places.

Option 3 Line up!

Ask your dog to move into middle position, feed them in position and/or ask them to sit.
If the dog can hold position ask them to wait or stay (or whatever cue or exercise you use).

In this clip, I use a middle position to line Decker up for the next rep:

Clip 

Option 4 Build enthusiasm

Sending the dog to middle position and then out again, after a tossed treat, is a great way to activate and build enthusiasm for returning to you. On Day 43, we worked on fast and fun recalls and this exercise is a great addition to your practice.

Clip

Option 5 Middle as diversion

Every day, I use middle position to keep Decker with me, to restrain him in one place safely, or to turn or divert him away from something such as traffic or passersby.

We can teach the dog to turn in middle position by tossing the treat in the direction you intend to move.

Clip

Option 6 Middle for husbandry training

Middle position offers lots of applications for husbandry procedures. My favourite applications here are to use the middle position as a way for small or young dogs to consent to being picked up and to position the dog, along with a chin target, for a jugular blood draw.

The priority when training any husbandry exercise is to make sure that you develop true CERs (Conditioned Emotional Responses) to the goings on so that the dog becomes comfortable and enjoys the procedure, rather than attempting to avoid or merely tolerating.

We have talked lots about consent, choice and conditioning so that pets develop a strong positive emotional response to potentially invasive situations. (Day 3, Day 17 & Day 24)

Layer each stage of difficulty carefully and gradually so as to build that positive attitude at every step.

Build joy in the middle position behaviour first and once you have that, then you can gradually add picking up, a little at a time, across many sessions:

Clip

Teach a middle position and a chin target (Day 15) behaviours separately. Once there is joy in each, practice chin targets in middle position.
Handling and manipulation can be added VERY gradually to that for a blood draw.

Clip

Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!

 

Welcome to Day 59 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

Engagement Games

At a glance:

• engagement games teach the dog to choose you, even when you don’t have treats or toys, and even when there are distractions
• we start with simple training games and build toward more and more engagement
• cognitive based enrichment
• while children might be able to participate with some of these exercises, there will be lots of canine excitement and activity with some of these games so they might not be safe for kids
  Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
• training exercises can be practiced in individual sessions of 1-2 minutes at a time; have as many sessions as you can!
  Because today challenges will be pretty exciting, make some time, after each session, for some lapping and chewing on stuffables.
  Think Rollercoaster Games!

‘To engage’ is defined as participating, to attract someone’s attention, and the one I particularly like, to establish meaningful contact or connection.

The important things to note here is that the dog chooses to engage, that they are working to attract your attention, and that you’re (both) developing a meaningful connection.

Engagement, for me and the dogs I work with, including my own, is about the dog choosing to engage, wanting to engage, finding me the most rewarding, over all the other things.
And that’s the key; the dog wants to be involved and to participate.

What do you need?

• food rewards – you can use your dog’s regular food, a training mix, commercial treats, home prepared treats such as cut up meats, cheese, vegetables or homemade treats such as liver or tuna cake
• favourite toys
• stuffables and lappable/lickables
• if you are working in an unsecured area, use a long line for safety and to prevent your dog practicing not recalling and having lots of fun, in the environment, with out you

Enrichment Goals:

• to teach the dog to choose you (and to teach the human to be fun, exciting and rewarding enough to choose)
• to teach the dog that choosing their human makes the magic happen
• to teach the dog that their human won’t nag or coerce
• to build that bond between dog and human
• to have a fun and rewarding experience in social situations, between dogs and humans
• to learn about learning – this is just another puzzle to your dog…”how do I train the human to make rewards available?!“…it’s all human training, for dogs!

While training exercises certainly fall into the cognitive enrichment category, they can provide so much more.

Working on choice-led engagement exercises helps to boost your relationship with your pet, enhances your ability to communicate with one another and builds trust. This is a level of social enrichment that’s tricky to replicate.

When we talk about enrichment being enriching, this is never more clear than when we start to teach behaviours intentionally. It’s the human’s job to set the dog up for success by making sure the behaviour is doable and that rewards are fast-flowing.

There’s no test at the end of this and you and your pet are not under any pressure. Learn to enjoy the time together, whether you achieve the goal behaviour or not. That’s what’s enriching here…the social and cognitive outlets such exercises provide (for both species).

What goals can you add to this list for your pets?

How can we achieve these goals?

• although you can use any reward that your dog will work for, using small food rewards that are quick to eat are best for some of these exercises so we can have lots of fast repetitions
• toys and your engagement, fun and play will work as excellent rewards for some other exercises
• keep it simple and split behaviour – reward approximations toward the final behaviour, rather than hoping that your dog will offer the goal behaviour quickly
• take your time and work in many short sessions
• try for a couple of minutes at a time, 5-10 rewards each session, and then take a break
• plan each session – what behaviours are you looking for and rewarding?
• watch the clips and try out the exercise
• portion out your dog’s daily food and allot some for training exercises

• make a training mix by adding in something yummier and leaving it all to ‘cook’ together in the fridge; the smells will mingle, harder foods will soften a little, and everything will become more valuable

• remember to adjust your pet’s diet accordingly to accommodate the extra calories from treats added, where relevant
• split your food rewards into little bowls with just the right number of rewards in each bowl so that you are ready to go; stick bowls of rewards in places where you may need to teach and reward behaviours so that you have rewards ready to go

What adjustments will you make for your pets?

Applications of engagement games:

You can easily see the value of engagement…it gets you great recall, it gets you nice loose leash walking, it gets you working around distractions.
All while providing the dog with choice. The choice to engage.

When engagement happens, the dog is fighting to engage regardless of the presence of distractions and triggers and regardless of whether you have treats or toys.

How ever you define it, engagement is chosen by the dog, rather than cued; engagement is not contingent on you having food rewards or toys.
The key to engagement is that you are not trying to get it, you are worthy of engagement and your dog fights to engage!

You can see that engagement is the foundation to teaching all the other behaviours; it’s what we build our relationship, with our dog, on and with.

Engagement is a two-way street

Making engagement happen starts with the human. If we want our dog to choose us, regardless of what else is going on and regardless of whether you have treats or toys, we have to work to prove that engaging with us is the best!

When the dog is engaged, choosing you regardless, he pushes into the learning and interacting process; he is more than meeting you halfway.

Here’s a clip of Decker and I, in a play-group situation with dogs of mixed age, sex, and neuter status. Decker is an entire male Am Staff (a type of “pit bull”). I have no treats, food or toys – he fights to engage regardless of the distraction level.

Link (Disclaimer: this was not intended to stress out any dog, but more so to demonstrate the ability to develop such owner-focus and engagement without the use of aversives.)

Spot the fighting to engage?!

Reinforce engagement

Reinforcement strengthens behaviour, so your dog’s disengagement is information telling you that you are not making sufficient reinforcement available for engagement. (Or that there is too much value in competing reinforcers.)

We tend to pile on the encouragement, excitement, food and toys trying to get our dogs to engage. When their attention wanes, we attempt to get it back by offering access to reinforcers. Ask yourself, what behaviour are you really reinforcing?

Engagement makes good things happens. Engagement means that the dog accesses behaviour they like to do. Reinforce behaviour with behaviour.

What does your dog like to do? Make that happen contingent on engagement.

Enrichment Options

We’ve introduced engagement games already in relation to sniffing, on Day 34. Sniffing isn’t a problem behaviour but distractions, like irresistible smells, are often viewed as the enemy to training and attention. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Sniffing doesn’t need to be a distraction; we won’t make it a distraction because we won’t be stopping the dog from doing it.

We can allow dogs sniff, make sure they get their jollies while not having to nag them…and still have them choose us!

What is this black magic?, I hear you ask. It’s engagement!

Baseline: Can you engage your dog?

Can you engage your dog without treats, toys, cues?

Can you maintain engagement while you move?

For how long?

What do you need to do? Remember, you come to life once the dog has engaged, not before!

What will help engage a dog will depend on that dog and the environment you are working in. Let’s see where we are with choice-led engagement.
Here’s one minute of working for engagement with Decker:

Clip

Engagement Game 1 Find my Face!

Is engagement the same as attention and focus?
Well, yes and no. Great engagement will get you attention and focus, that’s for sure.

Attention probably means eye contact or something close to that. While focus may not necessarily require that the dog focus on you, perhaps on something specific in the environment.

We will start with some formal focus exercises; this one is our favourites!

Level 1 Find my Face!

• start by dropping a food reward right at your toe
• watch your dog closely as he eats it
• as soon as you see him moving to raise his head, drop another food reward at your toe

Clip

Level 2 Find my Face!

• once your dog is bringing his head back up to make eye contact with you, start to drop the food reward a little further out to your side

Clip

Level 3 Find my Face!

• when your dog can find your face from your side, begin to drop the food reward behind you

Clip

Level 4 Find my Face!

Once your dog gets the game, vary your reward positioning, so the dog needs to move about a bit and come back and find your face:

Clip

Engagement Game 2 Find my Face! with distractions

Level 1 Add more movement

Clip

This simple exercise can be applied to building lovely engaged loose leash walking too!

Level 2 Take it on the road!

Work in new places, that aren’t too heavy with distractions so that your dog can get the game again.

Clip

Level 3 Add more distractions

Layer distractions carefully, little by little.

Here we are working on loose leash walking and some traffic reactivity so we work in areas where the dog has slightly more visual access and proximity to passing traffic, increasing the challenge gradually and in small increments.

If the dog can’t choose their human, the distractions are too much. Move away, give your dog a break and next time, work further away.

Clip

Clip

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Engagement Game 3 Engagement in the Real World

Bring your dog out for a Sniffathon. Let your dog sniff and roam and do doggie things.

Wait for them to engage. Just wait.

As soon as your dog engages, come to life. Reward them with five food rewards in a row, one after another. Have some fun with food.

Tell your dog to Go Sniff! and release them to be a dog again. Show them your empty hands and move away. Allow your dog to sniff and explore again. Repeat.

Link

Time how long it takes for them to engage – over time, we should be seeing a reduction in that time, with lots of practice.

Engagement Walks

Practice building engagement as part of your normal outings and walks with your dog. Learn to ask your dog if they are ready to engage, rather than nagging and harassing them by calling and luring and telling them. Ask, “are you ready?”.

Clip link

Play safe!

If you are working in a non-secure public area, please make sure your dog is safe. Use a long line and follow them, allowing them to explore without pressure.

Create an Engagement Monster

Practicing this in all sorts of environments and amidst all sorts of distractions will help to establish this as a way of life for you and your dog.

To make sure this is fun and pleasant for all, take care with distractions and triggers. Work at such a distance that your dog is able to engage with you; if they are super focused on other dogs, people or goings on, then increase distance. Work in more controllable situations.

Playing Fun with Food games helps to boost the value of rewards and makes sure that there is a fun behaviour reinforcing engagement, not just eating.

Link

Here’s my engagement monster and I play/train right beside wild deer (in the Phoenix Park). I make flirt pole and fun happen near distractions so engaging with me is a really easy choice!

Link

And here we are surprised by a deer, who came running out of cover, apparently curious about our activity (a lot of people feed these deer here).
Rather than chasing a deer tens of metres away, he chooses to engage.
The deer follows us for a bit so I have his lead on, just hanging, just in case. Safety first, always.
But, regardless, he chooses engagement.

Link

Indeed, deer or other weird things appearing have become a cue to engage:

Clip link

Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!

Welcome to Day 58 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

Paper

At a glance:

• simple puzzles made with paper
• food based enrichment
• snuffle it, scrunch it, wrap it, stuff it
• get the family involved in this one – kids love making puzzles for pets and these challenges offer lots of opportunities for children to use their imagination to come up with the best puzzles for their pets.
  Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
• Today’s puzzle prep will probably take you about five minutes – having a collection of puzzling stuff is a good idea…it will resemble a pile of rubbish or recycling!

What do you need?

• paper of different types, for example, wrapping paper, kitchen paper, packing paper
• Busy box stuff and assorted puzzle stuff such as cup holds, boxes, eggboxes, tubs, bottles, paper cup

Enrichment Goals:

• to encourage a wide range of foraging and exploratory behaviours
• to do more feeding related behaviour than just eating
• to encourage the development of strategies (behaviours) for getting the food
• by varying the design of each puzzle we will facilitate carrying out a range of different behaviours, broadening the dog’s repertoire

While this challenge is certainly food based, they are also experiencing cognitive, sensory and environmental enrichment, with lots of crossover between categories.

Working out how to get to the food and developing dexterous skills in manipulating the puzzles are examples of cognitive challenge.

Sniffing out, tasting and chewing food all offer sensory pay off, but so does finding their way through each food puzzle, determining its value,  and engaging in the puzzle of getting to the good stuff.

Paper puzzles encourage pets to interact with their environment – just the very interaction with the puzzle is encouraging the pet to manipulate their surroundings to get the things they like.

By offering a variety of puzzles, we want to help the dog expand their range of puzzle-busting behaviours and facilitate your pet applying strategies from other puzzles to new ones; that’s a true cognitive gift and is growing your dog’s brain!

What goals can you add to this list for your pets?

How can we achieve these goals?

• give your pet plenty of space for working on paper puzzle and bear in mind there will be mess, so think about spaces that are easier for clean up
• the more difficult you have made the challenge, the higher the value the reward must be so use HIGH value foods to motivate exploration and experimentation and make it VERY easy to get the food (no frustration!)
• if your dog just dives in, in full on destruction mode that might also be an indicator that they need an easier challenge so they get to experiment with a broader range of behaviours

What adjustments will you make for your pets?

Applications of Paper Puzzles:

When we make puzzles from essentially recyclable material, it allows us lots of puzzling versatility that can be adapted to suit the individual dog and our specific enrichment goals. You are only limited by your imagination!

Paper can make an excellent dissection outlet too, with some dogs, like Decker, just destroying it for the love it, without the need to add food.

No food needed…just dissection, for the love of it! (Link)

What I tend to see, though, when homemade puzzles are given to dogs, is that well-meaning owners go waaaaay over board, coming up with the most elaborate designs to really challenge their pet.

While it’s great to go for challenge, it’s important that enrichment remain enriching. That means that the challenge must be made appropriate and doable for the individual puzzler.

Our job is to adjust the puzzle difficulty so that our dog uses a range of behaviour and gets to the goal pretty quickly.

This is the true way to improve the dog’s confidence in puzzling (and in life) and help them expand their behavioural repertoire.

Because of the home made nature and variable materials used in these puzzles, it’s best to supervise your pet carefully when they have access to this puzzle.
Know your dog! If you have an ingester, paper puzzles may not work for you and your pet right now.

If you are concerned about your dog ingesting non-food items during puzzling, have a pocketful of HIGH value treats in your pocket and be ready to toss a couple toward your dog, across their eyeline, if you think they are thinking about eating the paper.
Making sure the challenge is very doable and they can get to the hidden food rewards quickly is key to modifying their behaviour and expectations during puzzling.

Check all your equipment for this challenge carefully and make sure to remove tape, staples, other fastners, small pieces and plastic pieces. Play safe!

Enrichment Options

Option 1: Snuffle it

Paper makes an excellent snuffing material, just added to a box or stuffed in a Busy box.

Foraging Box

Foraging Boxes can be a great way to recycle packing material! Link

Busy Box

Link

Boxes with openings, like Easter Egg boxes are great for Busy Boxes stuffed with packing paper!

Option 2 Scrunch it!

Make Paper Treat Parcels by adding food to paper and scrunching it!

• wrap treats in individual paper parcels

Use to make a teaser by adding each parcel to the spaces in an open eggbox, plastic insert, cupholder or muffing pan; hide food underneath them too.

Stack the teasers for extra challenge!

Hide paper treat parcels or scatter them:

Link

Set up a treat parcel sniffing course: line out balls of paper, some with food, some without:

Link

Suspend ’em!

Link

Option 3 Stuff it!

Stuff into tubes, boxes, egg boxes or other puzzles:

Add to a tub and work with the lid on or off:

Stuff those treat parcels into boxes, tubs, tubes, lattice balls:

Link

Option 4 Wrap it

Add paper on the outside to bring a new dimension to any challenge!

Wrap up eggbox puzzles, bottle puzzles, busy boxes, and even Stuffables!

Combine paper puzzles with other paper puzzles too to make compound puzzles and really challenge your dog!

Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!

Welcome to Day 57 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

Rollercoaster Games

At a glance:

• games, interactions and activities that bring your dog up, then down, then up, then down….
• applied to games you play with your dog, activities, outings and your dog’s entire day
• cognitive based enrichment
• while children can be great dog trainers, be safe with today’s challenges – we will be getting dogs pretty excited and that can sometimes be an inappropriate and unsuitable situation for children to be in
  Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
• sessions will vary in duration, but for the most part, play sessions should be brief; a few minutes at a time

What do you need?

• favourite toys such as tug toys, ropes, tennis balls
• food rewards – you can use your dog’s regular food, a training mix, commercial treats, home prepared treats such as cut up meats, cheese, vegetables or homemade treats such as liver or tuna cake

We will talk about human-dog play throughout this program, and one of the first lessons in learning to play with toys, with humans attached, is to teach the dog to release the toy so that the game can continue!
We want to be able to use a word to ask for an item to be released, whether that’s a toy or a ‘stolen’ item.

We introduced release cue exercises on Day 2. Having a release cue that’s relatively reliable will help with many of today’s challenges.

Clip

Enrichment Goals:

• to help dogs develop skills improving their ability to calm themselves after excitement and cope with stress
• to improve the dog’s ability to deal with excitement and exciting situations
• to encourage more appropriate toy play between dog and human
• to build that bond between dog and human
• to have a fun and rewarding experience in social situations, between dogs and humans

Today’s challenges will involve some training aspects, but you don’t have to engage in formal ‘training’ if you would prefer – Rollercoaster Games can be played as part of daily life too.

While training exercises certainly fall into the cognitive enrichment category, they can provide so much more.

Providing dogs with cues allows for a complex level of communication between two species; you are merely requesting that the dog perform behaviour and that request comes with a contract. Respond appropriately to this signal and rewards are coming your way. That’s the deal…that’s what being a good teacher is about – keeping your word and making it easy for your dog to train you.

This forges the most healthy of relationships between our two species. This is a level of social enrichment that’s tricky to replicate.

When we talk about enrichment being enriching, this is never more clear than when we start to teach behaviours intentionally. It’s the human’s job to set the dog up for success by making sure the behaviour is doable and that rewards are fast-flowing.

There’s no test at the end of this and you and your pet are not under any pressure. Learn to enjoy the time together, whether you achieve the goal behaviour or not. That’s what’s enriching here…the social and cognitive outlets such exercises provide (for both species).

What goals can you add to this list for your pets?

How can we achieve these goals?

• work with toys or other rewards that your dog enjoys
• keep it simple and split behaviour – reward approximations toward the final behaviour, rather than hoping that your dog will offer the goal behaviour quickly
• take your time and work in many short sessions
• try for 30 seconds at a time, 5-10 rewards each session, and then take a break
• plan each session – what behaviours are you looking for and rewarding?
• watch the clips and try out the exercise
• portion out your dog’s daily food and allot some for training exercises

• make a training mix by adding in something yummier and leaving it all to ‘cook’ together in the fridge; the smells will mingle, harder foods will soften a little, and everything will become more valuable

• remember to adjust your pet’s diet accordingly to accommodate the extra calories from treats added, where relevant
• split your food rewards into little bowls with just the right number of rewards in each bowl so that you are ready to go; stick bowls of rewards in places where you may need to teach and reward behaviours so that you have rewards ready to go

If you are feeding wet or fresh foods, cut up small or mash to a paste and present on a wooden spoon or spatula. Alternatively you can freeze in small ice cube trays or a pyramid baking tray so that you can use small portions and individual treats.

What adjustments will you make for your pets?

Applications of Rollercoaster Games:

Life can be pretty exciting for dogs, and play even more so. When our dog gets excited, regardless of the source, the dog’s stress systems are engaged.

Stress isn’t all bad and really just refers to a challenge the body must deal with. Excitement is one way the body can do that – hones a dog’s focus, increases their heart and respiratory rate, gets them activated and moving around. None of this is bad.

But being in this state for extended periods is no fun. That can become distressing, the bad type of stress, and even lead to effects relating to chronic stress.

The excited dog’s body is preparing to cope with physical and behavioural challenge and when we expose them to exerting and exciting events simultaneously or one after another, they don’t have time to recover from being all wound up.

The stress systems that activate the body, causing excitement, is balanced by an opposing system that brings everything back down and between the two animals can wind up and calm down, over and over again.

When we engage our dogs in activity, especially exerting, arousing, repetitive, intense activity, like repetitive fetch games or group dog-dog play, we may be contributing to problems in a couple of ways.

Our dog is associating this feeling and need for excitement with specific situations, individuals or goings on leading to this stress response being elicited earlier and earlier, across more situations, and becoming more established.

This heightened state of stress causes physiological conditions  that are essentially addictive; in humans we call these people “adrenaline junkies”. Canine adrenaline junkies, just like their human counterparts, may put themselves in situations where they can get their fix. And they need a bigger, harder hit every time.

This means these dogs are up and up and up and up, and may find it more difficult to come back down, to inhibit their behaviour, to respond to instruction or social etiquette, and may be living in a constant stress bubble.

The more the dog engages in such activities the more their baseline, for calm, is raised and they find it difficult to settle or calm themselves, they might be on edge, they might lose it quickly and easily, they might be over-active.

Rollercoaster Games are not about stopping activity or even preventing excitement, because where’s the fun in that (?), but instead, they are about helping prime our dogs’ stress systems to engage and relax, engage and relax. This helps our dog develop skills that allows them calm themselves more efficiently after getting wound up.

Enrichment Options

We can help our dogs live a Rollercoaster Life, facilitating calm after crazy. With lots of practice, especially for puppies and adolescents, this will become a way of life and your dog will learn to seek out calming activities to help him bring himself down.

Rollercoaster Days

Think of your dog’s entire day as a rollercoaster.

List all the things that bring your dog up.

This might include greeting him in the morning, preparing his breakfast, going outside to toilet and potter, you leaving him, you returning, the postman or passers-by, a neighbour dog barking, a cat visiting, the doorbell, seeing his lead, getting out for a walk, seeing other dogs, smelling the smells, playing fetch, fetch, fetch, fetch, fetch…

How much time does the dog get to recover from each upward swing?

What behavioural outlets are available to help him come down?

Making calm happen:

• nobody calms down when they are told to be calm….(the normal response to instruction, from others, to calm down, is to respond “I AM CALM!”)
• have locations and contexts that are associated with chilling out
• engage the dog in calming activities such as sniffing, chewing, lapping

How can you inject some calm after arousing events?

• sniffing is a great intermediate activity between being full on and getting to calm
  Bring the dog to a smelly spot, cueing the dog to sniff, tossing some food for sniffing, set up a snufflemat or snuffle puzzles.
• chewing and lapping help dogs settle and bring themselves down at a number of different levels
  Make a lined or stuffed Stuffable available after an exciting or exerting interaction or situation.
  Have a range of chewables availalbe for your dog so that they can seek that out when they feel the need.
• be calm
  The temptation, when our dogs are crazy, is to crank up the activity and attempt to run it out of them. While physical exhaustion may sound like the key to happiness and a quiet life, really that’s probably going to contribute to further craziness.
  Slowing your movements, lowering your voice, speaking quietly will help your dog calm too.
• let them get the crazy out
  Don’t try to stifle the craziness. Offer your dog calmer choices, but do let them choose. Sometimes they need to work through the crazy cycle to be able to choose a calmer option.
• don’t try to force it
  Remember, nobody calms down just because they are told to! Calming needs to come from the inside so the dog must get there, with our help rather than coercion. By providing outlets for calming, making them clearly available and making it easy for your dog to choose them.
• identify crazy situations and do your best to reduce your dog’s exposure – make calm an easier choice.
• practice calm when it’s easier to be calm – don’t wait for crazy situations to attempt to practice calm

Rollercoaster Outings

Getting out into the world is exciting for more dogs. To cope with the challenges associated with physical exertion, sensory stimulation, social interaction, staying safe and navigating the world, the body engages those stress systems, causing an increase in arousal.

None of that is necessarily bad but arousal piled on top of arousal on top of arousal might contribute to problems.

Think of your dog’s outing like a rollercoaster. Lots of that stuff is going to bring them up…but how will they come down…

• start calmly – build your dog’s comfort with walking gear
• think about when and where you go – are there certain triggers for crazy behaviour that might be more salient in certain places or at certain times
• go off road – bring your dog places that allow them to sniff and roam, and provide lots of space so that you can escape crazy triggers if required
• let them get the crazy out – make sure they have plenty of time at the start of their outing to get some energy out so don’t have high expectations and expect too much obedience
• ask your dog if they are ready to respond – let them choose to engage
• ask for simple behaviours and if your dog can eat food rewards and respond, have brief, one minute sessions now and then
• facilitate lots and lots of sniffing – let ’em sniff as long as they need to and let them choose sniffing
• halfway through, take a break for a Stuffable or a chewable
• wind down toward the end or at home with some sniffing
• have a Stuffable or chewable afterwards too

Try to get out for Adventure Time as often as you can!

Rollercoaster Games

Incorporate calming breaks, obedience behaviours, and even sniffing into play and games with your dog.

To get started with different Rollercoaster Games, there are some skills your dog will need, so those are described here too.

Skill 1: Toy release (Day 2)

Condition “thank you!” cue

Does your dog already have a toy release cue? How effective is that cue?

Unless you have a pretty reliable release behaviour, without intimidation (can you whisper it?), and during the excitement of a game, start here!

Beginners:

• have 10-20 tiny treats ready
• hold one or two treats behind your back
• say “thank you!” in an upbeat voice
• then move your hand and toss the treats across your dog’s eyeline

It doesn’t matter what your dog is doing, whether they look at you or not, just say “thank you!” and then toss the treats.

Repeat ten “thank yous” per session and then take a break.

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By practicing this over several sessions you will teach your dog that the phrase “thank you!” means to check the floor for yummies. By conditioning this cue reliably, your dog will begin to drop things to search the floor for a treat.

Advanced:

With some practice, you can begin to apply your conditioned release cue to play. Just about our favourite toy game to play is tug and contrary to popular belief playing this game won’t lead to behaviour problems.

We love tug because:

• the human and the dog has the toy most of the time
• the fun is happening with the human
• we can easily control and vary the intensity and duration of the game to better manage arousal
• it’s an excellent confidence booster; check out shy-girl Cara’s confidence increase in this tug game here
• playing tug training games is a great way to play body and mind games, all in one

This video provides you with a tutorial for teaching tug and release:

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Practice in play

We want games to be fun but recognise that dogs need to learn some rules about playing with humans, especially because play can get very exciting.

Playing with toys for short periods is a great way to introduce reinforcers other than food rewards, while boosting your relationship with your pet and their joy in engaging with you. Bringing this game on the road is an excellent way to improve recalls and responsiveness while out and about.

Beginners:

Fetch games, although often loved by humans and found addictive by dogs, present some problems.

First of all, the repetitive, intense and exerting nature of fetch games can cause spikes in arousal so constant that they can raise the dog’s overall baseline for stress and being wound up, leading to other problems.
That’s why it becomes ‘addictive’ and dogs can’t seem to get enough, bringing about all sorts of high stress behaviours. Watch your dog’s behaviour the next time you play – note their intensity for the ball, the hard panting, tight mouth, possibly with vocalising and barking…all associated with such levels of arousal that the dog may be losing control.

Second, the dog is being rewarded for moving away from their human. There is such a disconnect between dog and human, especially where those ball launcher devices are used.
We even see automated fetch devices available on the market now – no human needed 😦

To help make sure fetch games are actually fun and playful, while being beneficial for your dog’s behavioural health, we start by solidifying a ball release cue so that you can safely throw the ball again. Once that’s established, we can get the ball, have an obedience break and start the game going again.

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Intermediate:

Puppy tug games are our favourite and puppies and adult dogs love it! Check out this clip showing the rules of puppy tug:

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This game works great with puppies and young dogs, and also dogs that are really into tug games who can happily switch between a tug toy and food rewards.

Advanced:

In lots of dog sports and training, we use different cues or signals to communicate to the dog what sort of reinforcer to expect, where it will show up and how it will be presented. This helps to refine training and communication, and makes things very clear and predictable for the dog.

For example, for Decker, “tug” means to bite the toy in my hand and I will hang on, “Geddit” means grab the toy on the ground (I should refine this more to indicate what will happen with the toy afterwards, whether to tug or run away with it or to return to me and so on), “thank you” always means relinquish an item, no matter what.

In this clip, we are working on “switch”, which means release one toy and tug the other.

You will see that I continue to prompt his behaviour with more established cues (“thank you” and “tug”) but he starts to learn that the new cue, “switch”, means there’s more fun to be had!

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If your dog already has an established release cue, you can introduce a switch cue to add lots of fun to the game!

If your dog’s is a TUG-ADDICT, using your release cue to let the dog know to switch to another available toy, is a great way of teaching that release cue.

Say the release cue, reveal the other toy and make it live (wiggle it, jiggle it, make it irresistible) and when your dog switches, hide the first behind your back. Switch ever 3-5 seconds of tug.

Rollercoaster Game 1 Up & Down

Playing is exciting; it’s meant to be! And we can use play to have fun with our dog (obvs!) while also helping them develop a more rollercoaster approach to excitement. Incorporate Rollercoaster Games into every interaction and game you play with your dog so managing their own excitement becomes a way of life.

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Rollercoaster Games are especially important for puppies and adolescent dogs, who often have difficulty controlling arousal and self-calming. This is because those systems are developing in young dogs so it’s a pretty challenging time for them.

Support that development with regular, brief Rollercoaster Games:

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Play about three rounds of Rollercoaster Games per play session. Start with play and crazy for about a 3-count with a calming break of at least double that.
Always start with calm and end with calm.

Skill 2: Autosit (or Auto-any-4-on-the-floor behaviour)

Teach your dog that you freezing and crossing your arms across your chest is a cue to sit, or any four-on-the-floor behaviour, e.g. standing, lying down. This helps in our Go Wild/Freeze Rollercoaster Game, but also with polite greetings.

Your dog learns that a person with their arms crossed is a cue to sit, stand or lie down giving alternative behaviours to both the greeter and greetee. Polite greetings training often times involves training for humans and dogs!

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Fold your arms across your chest, ask your dog to sit, stand or lie down and when they do reward. Repeat five times and then test it.
Fold your arms and wait for your dog. If they can’t do it, ask them to do the chosen behaviour and repeat a couple more times.
Soon your dog will be offering that behaviour when they see your arms folded.

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Vary your approach, add some movement and even add some excitement to practice.

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Please be aware that not all jumping up in greeting situations is indicative of a comfortable happy dog.
Sometimes a dog is jumping up because they are overwhelmed by the interaction, because they are over-aroused, because they would like distance and relief.

Unless you are sure, don’t ask your dog to do any stationary behaviour when meeting a new person. To do so could risk them becoming less comfortable and feeling that they have to use escalated distance increasing signaling, such as freezing, growling, snarling, snapping or even biting, to gain relief from the interaction.

Rollercoaster Game 2 Go Wild/Freeze

You can use a toy for this one if you like, but it’s not necessary. I often use this game as one without toys, so that I can turn crazy on and off, any place, any time.

If Deck and I have been engaged in some precision work, or he’s had to inhibit his Decker-ness for a time, we will play this on/off switch game so that he has an outlet for some crazy, but we can maintain some level of control.

• do what ever it is that brings the crazy: move about, play tag, allow them to bark and spin and jump (if you find that ok)
• count out 3 seconds of crazy
• stop, freeze, fold your arms

If your dog can’t sit, stand or lie down, you might give them a hint by using the verbal cue or other signal for that behaviour.

• reward your dog, in that position, for 10 seconds
• reward with a food reward delivered one after another
• start the crazy again and repeat

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Repeat no more than three rounds of this game and then give your dog something to help them calm, such as a Stuffable.

Your dog doesn’t have to do a sit. You can reinforce any four-on-the-floor behaviour such as just standing or lying down. It’s up to you, and your dog!

Skill 3 Down on a mat (Day 10)

Practice matwork in short sessions of a few minutes at a time. If your dog is fidgety or finding it difficult to settle, work for shorter periods and practice more Parking to help them build some duration first.

It’s often better to use less exciting food rewards for matwork so that your dog isn’t too wound up by the anticipation of yummy food.

Beginners: teaching down

Start by teaching your dog to lie down on their mat.

Use the same mat for this work and tidy it away when you’re not training. Initially, we want the mat to be associated with rewards so if it’s just lying there at other times, it starts to use some value.

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If you want to progress to teaching your dog to lying down on a verbal cue, this clip will bring your through the stages.

To help your dog relax, teach them to lie down in a more relaxed position. What happens on the outside of the body can help affect what’s happening on the inside; more relaxed behaviour can help the dog feel more relaxed.

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Beginners: the mat is the place to be

Once your dog can lie down on the mat, we can begin to establish lying on the mat as the place to be. Note that we don’t need to ask the dog to lie down on their mat; we want the mat to be the signal to lie down there.

Practice some shaping exercises. Shaping is an approach to teaching that breaks the big, goal behaviour down into small achievable steps. We’ve given your dog a headstart as we have already taught them to lie on the mat. Now we are going to let them work it out a little.

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Intermediate: mat down, lie down

Now that the dog can find their mat and lie on it, we can begin to further establish that idea by practicing this exercise. Take the mat up between each trial when you toss the treat away for the dog to get. When they return, lay out the may again so they can practice lying on it immediately.

If they can’t quite do that, just go back to practicing easier exercises. Your dog is giving you information that they need more practice and more support.

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Intermediate: building duration

Your dog can lie on their mat and they know that lying on their mat is the place to be…now let’s make lying on the mat for longer and longer durations more and more rewarding.

We will use a technique referred to as 300 Peck to build duration. This is a reward-system that helps us build duration in behaviours by always working within the dog’s abilities.

Start with your dog lying happily on their mat. Start every session with five rewards, one after another, delivered on the mat. Instead of tossing a reward off the mat to reset, start our counting game:

Count 1, reward on the mat
Count 1, 2, reward on the mat
Count 1, 2, 3, reward on the mat
Count 1, 2, 3, 4, reward on the mat

And so on…

If your dog gets up, go back and start at one again. But instead of getting into a cycle of breaking, just practice up to five using 300 Peck. And then work on sessions up to ten, then up to 20 and so on.

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Your dog is learning lots, just with these simple exercises: they are learning that the mat is the place good things happen, they are learning that them just lying there makes rewards happen, they are learning to lie on the mat for longer and longer, and we are thinning out the number of rewards so they are learning to lie on their may for longer durations between rewards.

Rollercoaster Game 3 Matwork

Start calmly working on building during in a down on the mat and end calmly too. In the middle go from down on the mat to crazy and back about three times.

The calm bit should be at least twice the duration of the crazy bit. At the beginning of training, crazy should last 3-5 seconds.

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Rollercoaster Game 4 Play + Sniffing

Incorporate sniffing into your game to help with rollercoaster effects and increase the sensory complexity in games and interactions.

Incorporate this into any game that you play with your dog.
Playing fetch games, throw the ball once or twice. Take a sniffing break. You might even hide the ball and have your dog sniff it out; it doesn’t need to be exerting fetch every time.

Or use tug games, like here:

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Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!

Welcome to Day 56 of #100daysofenrichment and thank you for joining us on this journey!

Although our challenges are directed mainly at dogs, we want all species to enjoy and benefit from #100daysofenrichment so, please join in, adjust and adapt to help your pet or companion live a more enriched life.

Don’t forget to review all the information leading up to #100daysofenrichment and more here on playing safe. Know your dog!

Every Sunday during #100daysofenrichment is Sunday Funday! This means you and your pet repeat your favourite challenge or challenges from the week.

You can do it exactly as you did first time round, you can try a different option, build on your progress already established, reinvent and rejig it…what ever you want to do with the last week of challenges!

Day 50 Body Awareness – rear end awareness

Day 51 Compound Puzzles

Day 52 Your Favourite Trick!

Day 53 Suspended Puzzles Pt1

Day 54 Freestyle Friday

Day 55 Sniffing Saturday – Sniffing Courses

Your challenge

Now it’s your turn. Show us what you and your pets, of any species, can do with these challenges!

Post to your social media accounts, using the #100daysofenrichment so that we can find you and join our Facebook group to share your experiences, ideas and fun!
You can comment right here too 🙂

We look forward to hearing from you and your pets – have fun & brain games!