Welcome to Day 79 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.
nothing too complicated here: get some stuffables and jam them in a box or tub
some are lined, some are filled, some are decoys
chuck some other non-food toys in there too or toss some food rewards in and around the stuffables in the box
add other puzzles too if you’re feeling adventurous!
food based enrichment
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 lots of puzzling fun for their pets
Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
Prep will probably take you about ten minutes and for extra challenge prepare some frozen stuffables in advance
What do you need?
open boxes or tubs big enough to hold a few stuffables or toys suitable for your pet
to encourage a 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 out of the stuffables and the stuffables out of the box
adding different decoys and jamming the stuffables in different ways you can build variable, challenging puzzles that help your dog broaden their behavioural 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 empty get to the food and developing dexterous skills in manipulating the stuffables and the boxes 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.
Puzzles like these encourage pets to interact with their environment – just the very interaction with the box and its contents 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 puzzles 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 Box o’ Stuffables:
These puzzles are another version of busy boxes and just adding a little extra with lots of puzzling fun within.
Changing the picture, for the dog, can provide them with further cognitive challenge, causing them to have to adapt to the new or different set up and adjust their approach to a puzzle they may have presumed was straight forward and familiar.
These puzzles are pretty adaptable – you can increase and decrease the challenge easily, making it fun and interesting for your puzzler.
Don’t go over-board, however. Keep the challenge appropriate and match your dog’s comfort and confidence level. This is especially important if your dog is worried or hesitant about sticking their head into the box – keep it easier with a wider opening, fewer obstacles to getting the yummy ones, and very rewarding stuffables.
Because of the home made nature and variable materials used in parts of this puzzle, it’s best to supervise your pet carefully when they have access to it.
Know your dog! If you have an ingester, boxes and similar puzzle equipment may not work or you might try using a plastic tub and supervise them closely. They will still eat plastic, it will just take them longer.
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
This is a pretty simple and straight forward one for the humans, but lots of fun for the pets!
First place to start, is with Stuffables from Day 1! Check all that out for all the ins and outs of making the best stuffable toys and edibles.
Try a combination of different stuffables today – maybe you have some Kongs, some K9 Connectibles, some edibles in there, along with decoys such as empty toys or other toys.
Add the yummies to the outside of the stuffable to help encourage the dog to engage if they are hesitant.
You could add some food rewards to the base of the box so that your dog needs to dig through the stuffables to get to the bottom.
Try adding some packing paper, some paper treat parcels or maybe every a towel to really get them working!
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 78 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.
freeshaping is an approach to teaching that reduces the use of prompts (clues that the teacher gives the learner) and builds complex behaviour, increment by increment
it is learner-directed, from the start, with the teacher providing reinforcers to shape behaviour
the teacher sets up the learning environment so that it’s easier for the learner to choose desired responses
freeshaping can be applied to teaching almost any behaviour, but is most useful and efficient for teaching complex behaviours that the animal doesn’t offer naturally
but, freeshaping is most beneficial in helping teachers develop mechanical and teaching skills, while it’s enormously beneficial for learners in learning to learn, building confidence and expanding their repertoire; win-win!
This is very much the approach we will be taking today – we will be applying freeshaping to practice clear teaching mechanics in our teaching, and to help the learner to learn!
cognitive based enrichment
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. Freeshaping should be hands-off so, with adult support and guidance, this can be a great exercise for children to help with.
Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
freeshaping sessions can be taxing on the dog, especially for novice dogs, so practice in short sessions of 30 seconds to one 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
when starting with freeshaping, we begin with simple interaction-with-an-object exercises so choose some items that are novel to your dog, but not scary or unsafe; you could also choose items, that the dog has interacted with before, but present them in a new way
You will need a selection so choose a few.
Freeshaping is a teaching technique and a type of shaping.
It’s something you have likely applied before, without even knowing about it, and one via which you have learned, again, without knowing it was happening.
Animals are learning and teaching via shaping all the time. Check out this clip of a cheetah mum gradually building the challenge for her cubs, teaching them to hunt. She breaks down the big, complex behaviour into small achievable stages:
Obviously there are hunting scenes in the above clip, so if you’re not into that, please scroll on and just take my word for it!
While you can of course use freeshaping to teach complex behaviours, here, on Day 78, we will be playing freeshaping games to enhance the learning experience for both ends of the leash.
Enrichment Goals:
to encourage the pet to engage and lead the learning experience
to teach the pet to offer behaviours
to teach the pet to interact with item
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
improve day to day life, for dog and human, through targeting
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.
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…) 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
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
have a good understanding of what you will be doing, before you practice with the animal
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 freeshaping:
Freeshaping games help the teacher develop skills in the mechanics of teaching. In training, we talk about mechanics including timing, criteria and ROR (rate of reinforcement).
Timing – for the dog to form associations, good timing will be required so that the animal can link their behaviour with the reward.
Criteria – training criteria are the stages of learning. Every behaviour can be broken down into component stages, starting with easiest and increasing in complexity until they are able to offer the completed behaviour.
ROR – the rate of reinforcement measures how often the dog is rewarded. A good ROR means that your timing is good and that you have set training criteria appropriately.
Notice that all the emphasis is on the teacher’s skills, that’s because it’s our job to get this right so that the learner’s experience is clear and void of confusion. This is also a welfare issue. Even though you might be using food rewards or other positive reinforcers in training, if your skills are poor and the animal is stressed or confused, it’s probably not a terribly pleasant experience and may be extra stressful.
Your job is to make it really easy for the animal to offer behaviour that we want to see. That means we need to have a picture, in our heads, of the all the movements required for the animal to carry out the behaviour.
You apply this by offering rewards at the right time. That’s it. You observe your pet closely, and as soon as they offer a movement that’s close to the one you want to build the final behaviour, you reward.
Rewarded behaviour is repeated and then you observe for the next closest, and so on.
Ever play “hot & cold!” as a kid? This is pretty much that game.
Enrichment Options
Getting started with freeshaping games
Today we are going to take it easy so that you develop some skills and so that your learner isn’t overwhelmed, confused or frustrated.
Conditioned Reinforcers:
It’s most ideal, when working with freeshaping, that you have a conditioned reinforcer established. A conditioned reinforcer is a signal that tells the dog that that behaviour marked is the one that makes the reward happen.
Using a conditioned reinforcer, sometimes referred to as a marker, helps pin point the exact movement that made the treat happen, improving clarity for the learner.
A marker acts as a reward substitute and with careful conditioning will elicit a strong positive anticipatory response (YAY! the treat is coming!).
Markers might include a clicker, a whistle, a word like YES! or good, a thumbs up signal, a pen-light flash or any signal the animal can perceive.
Money, coins and notes, are conditioned reinforcers for humans!
This clips shows the mechanics of teaching a YES! marker:
This process is referred to as ‘charging’ the marker and that means that we are making the signal relevant to the dog. We are establishing that lovely anticipatory response – mark makes the treat happen!
Don’t worry if you can’t charge a marker signal today!
Setting up the learning environment
The important part of setting up the environment, for our games, will be the position of the trainer, the item and the reward.
We use this positioning to enhance and speed learning, reducing frustration or confusion.
Here’s a simple tutorial on reward positioning with Decker:
For our games, the item (we want the dog to interact with) should be between the human and the dog. That way, the dog returning to you for reinforcement, approaches or looks at the item and that’s our first criteria…that first, most simple interaction. This is what gets the ball rolling, so to speak.
Sometimes it’s better for the trainer to sit in a chair. This helps to discourage you moving to prompt the dog too much and also sets up a clear context for the dog, in which we play this game.
Set the learning environment up before you bring your learner in. Practice, without the dog, where you will send them for their food reward and when you will mark behaviour. What must the dog do to earn reinforcement?
Planning
We are not going into the depths of freeshaping today, rather just a simple introduction. But no matter, we still don’t want our learner to become confused or frustrated so we plan a little to make sure we are prepared.
To make this easier, our freeshaping games will be learner-led meaning that you are going to reward what ever movements the dog offers. Any interaction with the item, what ever they decide, we will reward.
This is how I get started with freeshaping with novice dogs. It opens up a new world for them, especially where they have been lured a lot or coerced a lot. Suddenly, they have the freedom to try something and lo and behold, it makes a reward happen.
This builds confidence and teaches them their behaviour matters. With each little offering, they are learning and growing.
Your job is to support that by being there, bang on time, to reward each little offering, no matter how small. Freeshaping will greatly hone your observations skills.
Let the learner lead
Set up your item, sit in the chair and let the dog decide what happens next. Mark and reward and and all interactions with the item; this might include looking at it, approaching it, passing it, sniffing it, and movement.
Here’s Decker’s first ever experiences with freeshaping when he was about 7 or 8 months of age:
At that stage, I had him just a couple of months and he was full-on into spooky adolescence plus settling into a new home, in a new country. This was important skill building for him, plus helping his confidence blossom.
Notice that what ever he offers we build on; touch with his nose and I will reward for more and more touches, strong pressure and moving the item, for example.
Try it out!
Choose your items and set up your learning environment. Get your treats ready, plan and practice. Now, bring the dog in and start freeshaping!
Carefully review this freeshaping tutorial with a completely novice dog, Busy:
Things to try when you’re not making progress. First thing to realise, it’s a trainer issue not a dog issue. Filming your practice is a great way for you to examine your mechanics so you can easily see what needs adjustment.
Don’t get frustrated – if your dog isn’t offering behaviour, stop. Take a break, end the session for now. Don’t get stuck in a stand-off.
Examine your set up and your timing – behaviour probably won’t happen if the ROR is too low.
Make it easier – reward for them doing less.
Don’t reward the same movement too often as they might just get stuck there and not be able to more on. Reward for any movement offered in any order.
Shaping isn’t linear so don’t worry if progress doesn’t seem to be going in some sort of order; you will move on two step, back three, on five and back two.
The more your practice, the better you both get.
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 77 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.
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!
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 76 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.
Saturdays during #100daysofenrichment are all about emphasising the dog in all our dogs; all about sniffing and doing dog things.
Last summer, in one of the workshops run for AniEd trainers, we discussed Scent & Sniffing. For this first time, I tried out something that I had been putting together in my head for quite a while…a sniffari!
I would love to say that I originated the term, but I think the credit goes to dog trainer Kristi Benson. And I would also love to claim that I came up with this idea, but I saw some similar version of this on an Australian company’s page: Dog Solutions.
Here’s their fantastic Mobile Snuffle Park:
AniEd’s version of this is possibly a little different and I am hoping to develop it more and more.
What is a SNIFFARI?
Sniffari is an olfactory adventure for your dog. It can be as elaborate or as basic, as large or small, and as complex or simple as you like. You are limited only by your imagination, and how far you want to take this.
We went all-out-elaborate for our workshop. Attendees from around the country brought lots of bits and pieces to build the Sniffari. AniEd is already filled with “rubbish” that we use for puzzling and enrichment, so we contributed lots too.
Our Sniffari is not just an olfactory journey, but a multi-sensory one. The dogs are drawn in and around many substrates, obstacles, sights AND smells. Many layers of cognition are engaged, meaning that so much brain power is involved.
A full enriching experience!
Setting up your SNIFFARI!
You can see the sorts of bits and pieces we have used, everything from fur to furniture!
You can set up your sniffari indoors or outdoors.
Outdoor sniffaris provide more space and extra challenge in the way air and the breeze moves through the obstacles.
When holding sniffaris outside, I tend not to include as much local vegetation etc. as it’s presumed the dog has olfactory information about this already. But when held indoors, I have tried to add vegetation of different types and from different locations as much as possible.
Adding plants, like this lavender, to snufflemats in a box, to contain the odour, proved a big hit on our Sniffaris.
It features a lot in this Sniffari with Ned and Dexter showing great interest in it:
In our Sniffaris we have used tents, chairs and tables to add different dimensions. We used a wooden frame, pool noodles, streamers, mats of different substrates, tubs of water, platforms and hula-hoops to add in physical and tactile challenge. We used seaweed, plants, old shoes, fur, feathers, toys, boxes, old food and cosmetic containers, vegetation, twigs and branches, sweeping brush, different containers, and lots of bits and pieces to add real olfactory interest.
We have also presented the interesting odours in different ways; up high, down low, under or behind other obstacles, hanging up, poking out, in tubs and boxes to contain and concentrate odour and most importantly, laid out with plenty of space in between each obstacle.
This space allows the dog to choose how they move in and around the course, and also to allow for lots of airflow to move.
Make sure the item/s aren’t dangerous and are safe to be sniffed, that they don’t contain or have never contained substances toxic to dogs, and make sure they’re appropriate for your dog. For example, it’s not a good idea to bring back vegetation that strange dogs may have peed on to unvaccinated puppies.
Really, there should be no food used in this Sniffari. It changes the dog’s approach to this challenge. By using novel and interesting things and presenting them in new ways, most dogs will be encouraged to explore if given time. As usual on Sniffing Saturdays, us humans are just hanging out letting our dogs do what they do best.
Group sniffaris aren’t always going to work. After this cooperative group had each had an individual chance to explore, under very close supervision they got to sniffari as a group:
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 75 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.
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
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!
small cloths such as dusting cloths, face cloths, tea towels etc. and Ziploc or similar sealable plastic bags, small sealable lunchboxes or tins.
Cut each into small pieces about the size of your palm, or so.
Bring a cut up cloth to each place you go, without your dog this week, and wipe the cloth on some surface or in some area. Once it’s loaded with scent, pop it into a sealable container and store where your dog can’t access it, until you are ready for it on Day 81.
You are collecting olfactory information and bringing it back for your dog to investigate!
you might also like to use SAFE essential oils, herbs or spices for this BUT the dog cannot have contact with the cloths dosed in these. Instead, add the scent to the cloth and pop it into a container to cook for a few days, if possible. When presenting it to your dog, put some holes in the container so that odour can travel, but so the dog doesn’t have direct contact.
novel items that your dog could interact with, but hasn’t interacted with yet
shallow, open boxes, tubs or similar
portable device such as smart phones, tablets, laptops etc. with internet connection
paper or plastic cups or similar small tubs etc. (you need 3 or 4 that are the same or very similar to one another)
And for Freestyle Friday you will design your own enrichment device with the following ingredients:
plastic bottles (make sure they are safe and remove all plastic parts, labeling etc.)
We have lots more fun and brain games for you for next week. Start getting ready…
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Welcome to Day 74 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.
roll treats or toys up in blankets, cloths, towels, sheets, clothing to make snuffle puzzles
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 blanket snuffle puzzles for their pets.
Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
Prepping some of these puzzles is really quick, and some require more commitment! Then your dog does all the work!
What do you need?
blankets, towels of different sizes and types, face cloths & tea towels, mats, sheets, dog beds, clothing, socks
to encourage a wide range of foraging and exploratory behaviours
to do more feeding related behaviour than eating; we can use toys in these ones too, but the foraging behaviour is still feeding related behaviour
to encourage the development of strategies (behaviours) for getting the food out of the blankests
by carefully varying the design and adjusting the difficulty, 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 roll-ups are examples of cognitive challenge.
I set up these puzzles in front of the dog, often times, so they can see me putting the rewards in and under the cloth or towel. Cognition research has demonstrated that dogs are capable of object permanence, meaning that they understand that an item or individual continues to exist, even when it can’t be perceived.
So, hiding a ball out of sight, for your dog is not like playing peek-a-boo with a baby…your dog knows the ball is in there to be found where as the baby may not!
(Miller et al, 2009) (Fiset & Plourde, 2013)
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.
Snuffle roll-up puzzles encourage pets to interact with their environment – just the very interaction with the blanket is encouraging the pet to manipulate their surroundings, to get the things they like.
By offering a variety of snuffle roll-up puzzles, we can 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 puzzles 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 or toys to motivate exploration and experimentation and make it VERY easy to get the reward (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 Snuffle Roll-ups:
Snuuffle roll-ups are simple and straight forward, but no matter how much practice your pet gets with these puzzles, they are always challenging because the roll-up will always fall in random ways, adding to the challenge for your pet.
These puzzles are truly adaptable – there really is no limit to how they can be adapted to suit different puzzling levels. But, they are also incredibly simple so can be used when very little equipment is available, and when space and time are tight.
I love to use these puzzles when waiting around with a dog, for example at seminars, classes and workshops. Keeps ’em busy and engaged, and prevents boredom.
Because of the home made nature and variable materials used in these, it’s best to supervise your pet carefully when they have access to this puzzle.
Know your dog!
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.
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 something they shouldn’t.
Check all your equipment for this challenge carefully and make sure there’s nothing that your pet will be able to detach, swallow or get injured on. Play safe!
Enrichment Options
As usual, we are bringing you and your pet through different levels of challenge so that you can introduce them to the puzzle and so that they have time to develop the behaviours required to solve it while avoiding frustration.
Option 1: Things in Blankets
This is your starting point so as to allow your dog to find their feet (paws?) with these challenges; important to help build confidence in the process and reduce frustration and blind-destruction. We did lots of Blankets puzzles on Day 29.
And it doesn’t need to be a blanket; you can use anything that works. In one of these challenges, I have even used some of Decker’s bandannas!
Beginners: Things Under a Blanket
place some food rewards on the floor
cover with the blanket, loosely
Let your dog find it and watch for the types of behaviour used to get to the reward.
Like making a Snuffle Mat, instead feed the cut lengths of fleece or towel through the gaps in a basket for 3D snuffling!
If using a particularly big basket, like this laundry basket, add a snuffle mat to the base too.
Advanced: Roll Ups Stuffed Shoe
Roll Ups stuffed into old shoes – exactly as it says on the tin!
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 73 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.
toyless/treatless interactions that are playful and silly
develop your goofiness as we work toward no-toy play that is truly cooperative and joyful
play is the ultimate in relationship boosting, stress busting fun
social and cognitive based enrichment
play and engagement form the foundation of relationships and successful training
lots of these exercises can get pretty exciting, so it might be better that smaller children not take part but help in preparing training rewards.
Children can be great dog trainers but require lots of guidance and support.
Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
no formal training sessions today, no contrived enrichment scenarios – make it natural, make it delightful, make it goofy
What do you need?
just you and your pet!
We will talk about human-dog play throughout this program, and have already started with Fun with Food games on Day 32.
Enrichment Goals:
to make the fun about the engagement and interaction and not training exercises, food rewards or toys
to build engagement 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
We are not working on training exercises today but I do want to make sure that we understand that all behaviour is reinforced or punished. Reinforcers increase behaviour, punisher decrease it.
So, if behaviour is happening something is reinforcing it, and if it’s not happening, something is punishing it.
Play is no different. Just like cueing behaviour and your dog responding is a dance of communication, play is too. Perhaps, even more so.
You do behaviour, your dog responds, you respond, your dog responds, you respond and so on and on.
This allows for a wonderfully complex level of communication between two species, forging a most health relationship between our two species.
This is a level of social and cognitive enrichment that’s tricky to replicate.
What goals can you add to this list for your pets?
How can we achieve these goals?
Today’s challenge is about keeping it simple and collecting information from your observations.
What sort of interactions, between your dog and you, make your dog smile?
No treats, no toys, just you and your pet.
Maybe it’s just a passing interaction, a little touch, a fun movement, a silly voice.
There doesn’t need to be any duration to these interactions, a couple of seconds or a couple of minutes is good.
Sit on the floor. Wait for your dog to check you out. Try some different moves and see which ones cause your dog joy and get them wanting more.
Practice those.
Keep it really simple today – get a good understanding of inter-species play, and how we humans often get it pretty wrong.
Applications of Play:
Play is a tricky thing that we think we recognise if we see it, but might not be able to adequately define it. And that’s the case in the literature too.
We think that animals play, but we’re not really sure why. The play research suggests we start by defining play so here’s a simple run down…
play for play’s sake, because you choose to play
play is fun, and that’s enough
play feels good and we want to engage in play (you don’t have to play)
play can sometimes look serious, but there are important differences; the serious parts happen out of order or in the absence of normal triggers relative to the serious stuff
play is creative, spontaneous and improvised
play happens when we feel safe – time should fly, you should feel less self-conscious
And although there might be some agreement on how we might define play, when it comes to deciphering the functions of play, there are lots of differences.
Play probably helps animals prepare for swings in emotion, gets them ready and honed for life and let’s not forget, play is fun! Having fun is a viable function of behaviour.
Dogs and humans play differently and dog-dog play differs from dog-human play (and differs from human-human play). But, like in so many areas, dogs and humans share tons of the basic rules of social interactions.
As is so often typical of us humans, we often approach play in the way we think the dog should play or in the way we think the dog should enjoy playing. And this so often turns the dog off play, changes the nature of games and ultimately causes break downs in communication and relationship.
I spend a lot of time working on improving relationships between pets and their people; that’s what this entire project is about too. I also spend a lot of that time helping people play with their dogs (certainly not the worst job in the world!).
I incorporate play in almost every training and behaviour program I design. My most common problem is that people don’t appear to know how to play with their dogs and sometimes don’t value play’s importance, whether that be toy based games, or just silly, playing interactions.
Our trainers will tell you that that is something that causes me great stress and concern – I take play very seriously, playfully serious and seriously playful!
I believe that play is life, and play is a way of dealing with life. Improving your play with your dog does so much more than just fun with food.
Just because you (think you) utilise reward based training, R+, “force-free” or whatever “positive” label, doesn’t mean it’s a happy, playful learning experience. Teaching playful behaviour isn’t the same as playing.
The beauty of establishing these foundations is that the more you play together, the more you will each shape one another’s behaviour. Your behaviour will evolve, adapt and adjust to your player.
The ultimate goal in play is to get really nice play-interactions, without treats or toys. The two players, dog and human, are participating for the pure joy. That’s coming soon!
Play starts with an invitation and consent, the players make eye contact and ask if they want to keep the game going; play is cooperative so we ask and answer. Play involves mirroring of behaviour and balanced participation.
Today, we continue on the road to wonderful, consent-full, choice-led, partnership based play between dog and human. What could be better than that?
Play Dos and Don’ts
Do
play in really short sessions
get their attention first
invite play
get consent
and keep asking if they would like to continue…
practice – play is like any other behaviour
Don’t
bring too much intensity
push the toy at the dog
make it too exciting when the dog is just starting to show interest
expect too much
rely on food too much
get stuck
play too long
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!
My favourite playa, whose capacity for joy, fun and play apparently knows no bounds and has me in amazement and awe (and sometimes bewilderment) every day.
Welcome to Day 72 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.
toys that dispense food when pushed, rocked, or manipulated
may be commercially available toys or homemade
food based, cognitive based and sensory based enrichment
may provide outlets for cognitive challenge and puzzling, but care must be taken to avoid frustration
get the family involved in this one – for the most part, the dog will be doing all the work but children might like to help prepare food dispensing toys for their pets
look closely at the sorts of behaviours required to solve the puzzle – most are pretty similar but some will stretch your puzzler’s abilities
What do you need?
Pringles or similar tubes
old tennis balls or other old toys
lattice balls
commercially available treat dispensing toys
Enrichment Goals:
to encourage manipulation of the toy
provide outlets for puzzling and cognitive challenge
to encourage interaction with their environment and help in the development of behaviours/strategies for manipulating the item, acquiring edible parts or dissecting
to encourage feeding behaviours, beyond just eating
to encourage a wide range of foraging and exploratory behaviours by offering toys of different design, expanding the dog’s behavioural repertoire
What goals can you add to this list for your pets?
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 toys 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.
Puzzles encourage pets to interact with their environment – just the very interaction with the toy 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!
How can we achieve these goals?
provide your dog with a safe, comfy space for working on puzzles
some of these toys can be pretty noisy so think about playing on softer flooring, like carpet for example, and take care with furniture that might get scuffed and beaten up, so consider the area in which you work carefully
remember, there might be mess so think of that for clean-up
try a range of dispensers to assess which your dog prefers and to see which behaviours they need help with
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 food dispensing toys:
Some of the first and most widely available ‘enrichment’ toys for dogs were food and treat dispensing toys so they have been around a long time, in one form or another. Many pet owners will be familiar with them and will have seen them in pet shops and suppliers.
Because they are so often referred to as ‘treat’ dispensers, many pet owners might think them relevant only to treats and occasional use. Now, there are a wide range of these toys available, in lots of different designs requiring different puzzle busting skills.
I split food dispensing toys into two broad categories, depending on the type of behaviour they encourage: pacifying and activating.
Stuffables and lickables/lappables, when used appropriately, are pacifying encouraging lapping and chewing.
Activating toys, like today’s food dispensers, will invariably encourage the dog to move about, often having to manipulate the toy with more force and movement.
You can use stuffable toys and fill them with drier food and treats which will encourage the dog to bounce or roll them, providing an activating effect.
Because some of these toys are heavier, wobbly or big, some dogs may be cautious of them. But, I am more concerned about how these toys tend to be introduced. There is often limited means to decrease or increase the challenge so dogs are left to work it out, experiencing frustration and the resulting arousal.
This may not be enriching after all.
Enrichment Options
Food dispensing toys might be homemade or bought.
Because of the home made nature and variable materials used in of the puzzles today, it’s best to supervise your pet carefully when they have access to them.
Know your dog! If you have an ingester, take great care and supervise them closely.
If you are concerned about your dog ingesting non-food items during puzzling, have a pocketful of HIGH value treats and be ready to toss a couple toward your dog, across their eyeline, if you think they are thinking about eating something they shouldn’t.
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 fasteners, small pieces and plastic pieces. Play safe!
Care should be taken with bought toys too as they may not be built for chewing or particularly destructive efforts.
Watch your dog closely for behaviours that might eventually help solve the puzzle. Be ready to toss some food rewards to the dog for those behaviours, even if they don’t solve the puzzle. This will help to prevent them becoming too frustrated or destructive.
Homemade Food Dispensing Toys
Make a simple food dispensing toy using a Pringle tube or similar:
You can use any container with a lid too. Just make some holes and secure the lid. If using a larger container, like a lunchbox, you can add some blockers such as scrunched up paper or cardboard toilet roll tubes so that the food doesn’t just fall out.
Use an old tennis ball or other old toy with a hole in (or make a hole):
There are a wide range of toys available in shops and online. Most require that the dog move the toy, either with their feet or nose, to move the toy so that food falls out.
Kong Wobblers typify this category of activating food dispensing toys:
Introduce these toys carefully to avoid the dog becoming spooked or frustrated by their use. This clip shows how to introduce a toy, in this case a Wobbler, that requires the dog to tip and move it so that the food falls out.
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 71 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.
food based, cognitive and sensory based enrichment
different dogs have different motivations for chasing, with some chasing any time, any thing, at any opportunity, while some show less interest in chasing as a past-time
There are some challenges here that may cause a little too much excitement for getting the children involved.
Remember, supervise children in all enrichment activities and interactions with pets.
some of these games will require some crafty prep, while some are quick to set up and you and your pet can engage in them for varying durations
Many normal natural necessary dog behaviours are an annoyance for dog owners, such as chewing and digging. Chasing is an interesting one because in some contexts many dog owners delight in their dog engaging in it, and in some contexts it truly worries the humans. To chasing dogs, of course, the distinction is often arbitrary; it’s hard for dogs, living in the human world, to win!
People often presume that some chasing is fun and beneficial for their pet, for example,:
chasing after a ball
chasing after other dogs when ‘ playing’
chasing animals like squirrels or birds
People often find some chasing inappropriate and dangerous, for example,:
chasing people and children
chasing livestock or larger animals
chasing cars or other vehicles
To me though, chasing is inappropriate when it contributes to such raised levels of arousal (stress), that the dog loses control, some what, which can be damaging to behavioural and physical health.
To the dog, regardless of what he’s chasing and regardless of human rules, his chasing behaviour seems appropriate.
That will mean that chasing behaviour and tendencies require careful management to prevent chasing becoming a human and dog problem.
What do you need?
toys for fetching, tugging etc.
kibble and food rewards
dog lead, cord, rope or similar
flirt pole or the tools to make one
Home-made flirt pole: use a horse lunge whip with a toy tied to it (you may require extra cord so that the flirt is long enough – I use blind cord and it works well)
Enrichment Goals:
to facilitate appropriate chasing behaviour, while maintaining behavioural health and safety
to encourage a wide range of normal, natural, necessary dog behaviours
to broaden the dog’s behavioural repertoire
to help build responsiveness and arousal control in chasing contexts
Why do dogs chase?
Dogs have evolved from predatory animals and on top of that, humans have exaggerated and inhibited different parts of the canid predatory sequence, through selective breeding, to develop breeds of dog that can carry out different jobs.
Chasing features heavily in many dog-jobs so there may be some types who are more into chasing than others, but, note that chasing, to some degree, is part of ALL dogs.
The predatory sequence, above, shows the complete sequence of behaviour intact in animals who are killing to eat. It is likely that the intact predatory sequence is present in some groups and types of dogs, given the jobs they have been selected for over centuries. But, just because a dog chases, doesn’t mean that he necessarily bites, kills, or consumes.
All of our enrichment endeavours, especially those challenges that are food based, should take into account these behaviour sets. Considerations for type and individual tendencies must be taken into account too to ensure that the dog is provided with outlets for behaviour he needs to do.
But, as soon as we start talking about chasing, pet owners get worried; will this make the dog more predatory, they query. I’m not sure what more predatory means, because, truth be told, your dog is already a predator.
By facilitating appropriate outlets for chasing, we are contributing to giving your pet an enriched life.
How can we achieve these goals?
Ascertaining appropriate from inappropriate is important here. There are tons of behaviours that dogs can do, love to do, and will do, given the slightest chance, but that can be harmful to them.
How did that happen? How did such harmful behaviours evolve?
While domestication certainly provides animals with skills (behaviours) that make it easier to live with humans, selective breeding can cause the exaggeration or inhibition of behaviours that require specific environmental, rearing and care conditions. Without responsible humans implementing this care, some behaviours can become harmful for pets and their people.
And to come full circle, this is why structured and intentional enrichment programs are so so so important for pet dogs. Safe and appropriate outlets for dog behaviour, along with careful management to prevent inappropriate behaviour, should be central to our caring for our pets.
Not to harp on about it, but that’s what #100daysofenrichment is all about and why our challenges are so far ranging in scope and detail. Providing a complete picture for pet owners, and subsequently their pets, will be vital in ensuring that pets’ welfare is maintained and improved.
What adjustments will you make for your pets?
Applications of Chasing:
Chasing may be food related, social and /or sensory related behaviour. Dogs may chase prey items to eat as part of predatory behaviour and may engage in chasing behaviour as part of play in social, sensory and cognitive enrichment contexts.
Remembering what we have talked about in relation to selective breeding, not all chasing dogs do is for food. Some are chasing because that’s what they have been bred to do, and they don’t appear that interested in going any further.
But, where that arousal increases and increases, any and all dogs can demonstrate inappropriate and dangerous chasing behaviour.
Because of the many functions of chasing, and the risk of it all going pear-shaped, we must provide dogs with appropriate outlets for chasing behaviour so that they get their jollies while remaining helpful and enriching.
Young dogs will invariably be enticed to chase easily and as they age they may become less interested. Predatory type chasing really develops and becomes more coordinated at about 5-7 months, with these young adolescents suddenly showing intentional stalking behaviour, pouncing and chasing with great enthusiasm
Adolescent dogs will also have more difficulty controlling arousal and thinking through behavioural choices, so chasing will often become a big part of their social experience. This can easily get out of control, especially during this developmental stage, and must be monitored carefully.
Short stints of bitey face, wrestling play should be emphasised and facilitated, especially for young dogs; along with monitoring for appropriate play in relation to lots of other criteria. Chasing play should be minimised.
Dog-dog play is not really going to be discussed throughout the #100days and will certainly not feature as a main approach to canine enrichment.
Your dog’s brain on chasing
Chasing requires the body and brain to work hard; physical exertion including increased demands for oxygen leading to increased respiration, heart rates and blood pressure. While that demands lots of brain input, so does the behavioural aspects of chasing.
Chasing requires the body to rise to some serious challenge. Another way of describing this, is stress. In dog training, we sometimes refer to the amount of stress the dog is experiencing and how they’re coping, as arousal. Neither stress nor arousal are necessarily bad.
Indeed, just the right amounts of stress and arousal are good and are definitely rewarding, triggering the dog’s reward systems in their brain. Dogs chase for chasing’s sake.
So far, chasing is pretty fun.
But, the longer your dog is chasing and in this state of increasing arousal, the closer it can become to chasing becoming more harmful.
As arousal increases, less input comes from higher, thinking parts of the brain as the more reactionary, emotional parts direct the action.
This means that chasing can start out appropriate, with the dog able to make thoughtful choices (well, as thoughtful as dogs ever are) about how he participates in chasing behaviour.
As that arousal increases, he is less well able to choose and more likely to react. This means that intense chasing can become inappropriate, leading to dangerous and harmful behaviour, directed at inappropriate triggers and associated with moving through predatory behaviours quickly and possibly uninhibited.
The reward and protective systems in the brain, that produce all sorts of pleasant neurochemicals, can even lead to the dog essentially becoming addicted to high octane chasing, and the situations that allow it.
Intense chasing in social situations and exerting repetitive fetch games may not be the sort of fun we want for our dogs at all.
Play Safe!
Only play chasing, active games with your dog when they are well warmed up. Ideally, you should run through a warm up routine with your dog which will include activities and stretches. At the end of each chasing game, there should also be a corresponding warm down once chasing games are over.
Bring the excitement down, after all that, with lots of sniffing and then some lapping and chewing on stuffables or similar. Remember, think rollercoasters!
Chasing must be functional
Chasing must be functional for it to be beneficial, in that, there must be some pay-off to chasing; the dog shouldn’t be chasing and not actually catch something, eat something or have some social interaction.
This is why I do not consider chasing a light or projected image enriching and instead frustrating and arousing, not in a good way. Not to mention, the risks such games may pose where a dog is predisposed to reflection/shadow chasing, or other compulsive behaviours.
Make sure the dog gets to catch their ‘prey’, easily and without frustration in every chase.
Enrichment Options
Chasing is something most dogs will want to do in some capacity, and it’s up to us to make sure they get to do it carefully, while still having fun.
Don’t get hooked on allowing your dog to chase inappropriately, even if you think they’re having fun. A tired dog is not necessarily well behaved, they might just be tired! And if your dog is doing a lot of chasing to the point of physical exhaustion, I think we might need to find other, more rounded-out outlets for both you and your pet.
Option 1 Chasing Toy Games
Chasing toy games, like fetch, can still be part of your dog’s day to day life and activity, but, play in Rollercoaster Games.
This will help your dog get his chasing jollies, while avoiding the pitfalls of exertion and increasing arousal.
Stop now and go back to Day 57; start living and playing Rollercoaster Games today!
When you play, mix it up. Lots of breaks and, just as importantly, lots of variety to the game…never just fetch, fetch, fetch, fetch…
Add in lots of toy searches to encourage sniffing, which will help the fetcher recover from some over arousal; more on Day 62.
Take care with fetch games, and mix it up; here and here.
Option 2 Flirt Poling
Flirt poles are like cat fishing rod toys, but for dogs, so bigger and sturdier. You can buy commercially produced flirt poles (for example, here) or you can make your own.
Use a horse lunge whip, which are available from many pet and equine outlets, and tie a toy to it – simples!
Depending on the type of whip, you might need to add some cord to the whip. I use the big lunge whip when out and about in lots of space and a smaller crop, with cord to tie to the toy.
Take care to use a soft, light toy so that it won’t do too much damage if it hits you or your dog, or won’t hurt them when they chase and grab it.
Flirt pole with care
Flirt pole fun requires care because it’s likely to cause big spikes in arousal and the subsequent loss of control, leading to problems all over the place. As such, flirt poling should be introduced carefully with rules in place.
This is an old video with a baby-Decker but outlines the rules to keep the fun in flirt pole!
Introduce the flirt pole carefully, not just to establish the rules and appropriate behaviour, but also to prevent the dog becoming overwhelmed or scared. And if that’s the case, there are particular guidelines that should be followed to help the dog deal with something potentially scary:
If you don’t have the tools or inclination to make a flirtpole, don’t worry, we’ve still got you covered!
Take your dog’s favourite soft toy and tie to a dog lead or cord (you can buy chaser toys too, like this one!). Make sure that there’s no metal parts of the lead in contact with the dog’s mouth or body when he chases or grabs the toy.
Present and play with the Chaser in exactly the same way you would a flirt pole.
Option 4 Food Chasing
Chasing must be functional for it to be beneficial, in that, there must be some pay-off to chasing; the dog shouldn’t be chasing and not actually catch something, eat something or have some social interaction.
That makes chasing games versatile and perfect for food and toys.
Kibble Chasing
Food that rolls along the floor makes for a great chasing target! Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be kibble but works best if it’s a drier, harder food, especially if on hard flooring rather than carpet or grass.
Elastic Recalls games can be a great way of having a dog work for their meal, while improving responsiveness and engagement; more on Day 43
I play a couple of games with Decker: kibble chasing where I just fire kibble around the space and Goal Keeping, where I try to get the kibble through his legs, along the floor. Try out which ones your dog enjoys!
Kibble chasing, with care, can be nice for a pair of suitable dogs to play too:
You can go all in on this chasing challenge with the next one!
Tie some food on a string or cord and attach to the back of a remote controlled car – switch it on and let the fun begin!
You will need plenty of space for this one and probably food that is easily visible for your dog too. Because we want chasing behaviour to be functional, and to prevent the car being damaged or your dog being injured by it, always use food tied on a long cord so that they dog can easily catch it.
Raw feeders, with whom I have worked, have loved using this game to feed wings, legs, and bones. A good chew is an excellent way to wind down after a hunt!
Option 5 Chasing, at rest
Doesn’t sound like it makes a whole lot of sense, right?
We can provide dogs with some chasing jollies, even when they are lying down or even on rest or restricted exercise.
Pouncing and eye stalking
Play with your dog, on the floor. Have them lie down or sit and sit on the floor or on a low stool, opposite them.
Move a toy, ideally longer, softer and wiggly, from your left to your right, along the floor in darting movements.
Allow your dog to eye stalk it, following it intensely with their eyes. Suddenly stop the movement and allow them to pounce, paw or jump on it.
When they do, have a little game or allow them to chomp and chew it.
Handball
Teach your dog to roll or drop the ball in a stationary position. This is no different than teaching fetch, except your dog is lying down or sitting throughout.
Chasing at rest games offer fun chasing games when perhaps exertion is not possible or appropriate. They offer a ball-fix for the addict, without causing too much out of control exertion and arousal.
Option 6 Chasing Over Sized Balls
Lots of dogs, Decker included, LOVE chasing, biting, chasing, biting over sized balls – balls they can’t quite pick up and carry, like Jolly Balls, Boomer Balls or Running Eggs.
Just like with flirt poling, dogs can get super wound up when chasing these toys so the same care is required, with a very clear end-of-game cue established.
Check out Decker’s level of nuttiness when playing Boomer Ball, with a clear “take a break” and “finished” cue at the end.
This is established by playing very short games, so the dog has access to the ball for very brief play, and then swapping it out (establish a release cue first) for a really tantalising stuffable.
Jolly Ball fun is a big favourite of Decker and he gets to play out some real predatory behaviour; watch him chase-bite-shake his “prey”:
Your dog might already play this game with you, whether you like it or not!
Play Keep-Away games using a particular signal, such as a phrase or action; I say “I’m gonna getcha” and make grabby hands.
And make sure to play only where you have established a solid release cue.
Don’t chase your dog if they get some ‘forbidden’ item! Instead move in the opposite direction and pretend to be very interested in some other activity or, for more urgent situations, create a diversion by, for example, tossing food rewards, pretending to get ready for a walk or to leave, or rustle packaging in the fridge. Continue all evasive action until the dog approaches to check out what you’re up to!
In this clip, I ask Decker which games he would like to play. A couple of times, he asks me to play the Keep-Away-Monster:
Incorporate two-way chasing – let the dog chase you, while they have the toy in their mouth, as well as you chasing him. In play, the dog should have the toy more than they don’t!
Chasing can be fun and provide a range of behavioural outlets for your pet, once we take care and manage inappropriate chasing behaviour and potentially damaging effects of chasing behaviour.
Dogs likely direct chasing behaviour inappropriately due to some arousal spike, and of course, reinforcement history.
Chasing in ‘play’
Dogs might have had a lot of practice chasing in ‘play’ with other dogs, especially during adolescence, and/or exposed to high-arousal environments, especially during this developmental period, in association with other dogs. This is largely why I am not at all a fan of daycares, dog parks, play groups or “social events”. This is not socialisation.
These dogs likely become ‘addicted’ to the highs of chasing and their behaviour may become increasingly difficult in anticipation of interacting with other dogs. Their chasing behaviour may involve effectively bullying other dogs, and their approach to dealing with arousal may impact other parts of their life and behaviour in general.
If high arousal play and social interactions are likely among dogs, especially where there are size or age differences, and especially when chasing features or has featured, we may have increased risk of a phenomenon known as ‘predatory drift’ occurring. When arousal is so high, it’s easy for some dogs to slip into more reactionary, ‘primitive’ behaviour resulting in predatory type behaviour being directed at non-prey items like other dogs or even children; triggers which may behave in a manner that triggers predatory behaviour (e.g. running around, squealing and so on).
Predatory chasing
Chasing may occur in appropriate contexts too, even though we find the behaviour undesirable which may include livestock chasing. At this time of year, lambing makes sheep more vulnerable, but pet dogs chasing sheep and other livestock is becoming a considerable problem for farmers. And, it will become a more serious problem for pet owners unless we can improve responsibility and accountability.
Sheep may become distressed at just the appearance of an unfamiliar dog close to them, so it won’t take much to cause these largely helpless animals to panic. Although some may be injured or killed by the dogs attacking them, many more die and become terribly distressed as they crush at gates and exits, over heating and suffering at death.
I am sure we can agree that this is not acceptable on any level, and unfortunately will continue to establish the poor tolerance of dogs in society, even further.
Any dog can and will chase livestock so all dogs must be confined securely and managed carefully where access to livestock is possible.
We must also look at wildlife chasing as possibly being inappropriate in a lot of cases, for many of the same reasons.
A dog, chasing wildlife such as squirrels or birds (or livestock), may develop a strong reinforcement history for this behaviour and even more so should they catch their quarry, catch and kill it or catch, kill and consume it. The more wildlife chasing the dog does, whether they are successful or not, the more difficult the behaviour becomes to manage.
Chasing & Fear
Lots of dogs will develop inappropriate chasing behaviours because chasing ‘makes’ the scary trigger go away. The dog, of course, doesn’t understand that the trigger is going on its way anyway, but as they practice this behaviour, it is reinforced and becomes more and more established.
This is regularly associated with dogs who lunge, vocalise and chase vehicles, cyclists or joggers.
This behaviour often crops up during adolescence so may be founded in higher arousal or poorer arousal control. These spikes in arousal may be associated with being out and about, in anticipation of some social interaction and fear or worry.
Tips for dealing with inappropriate chasing:
prevent inappropriate chasing with suitable confinement or restraint
exercise the dog in other areas to reduce triggering
provide the dog with tons of appropriate outlets for chasing behaviour and normal, natural, necessary dog behaviour
carefully play Rollercoaster Games and supervise dog-dog play closely, where relevant
establish below threshold conditions – where can you hang out, where the dog is not intensely focused on them. The dog should be able to choose engagement with you, take food rewards and carry out simple behaviours. If they can’t, the subject dog needs more distance and less intensity.
have short counterconditioning sessions at that safe working distance (example here)
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!
AniEd Ireland 