Getting started with enrichment
The market for dog products is booming, with more attention being paid to our pooches than ever before - you can buy everything from clothing and accessories to highly specialist food and equipment. In this blog post, I want to collect some of the best products currently available for enrichment purposes, and share ways to use them that can contribute to your dog having a happy, healthy life.
Enrichment can help with boredom, stress and anxiety, calmness and rest, and building a great bond.
But first, what is enrichment? Enrichment refers to anything that adds to a dog’s life, providing engagement and mental or physical exercise and stimulation. There are lots of different activities that are enriching for dogs, including licking, chewing, sniffing, searching, exploring, chasing, herding, puzzle-solving, retrieving, and dissecting.
If we think about the ways in which wild animals similar to dogs live and act to survive, we can think about processes that our dogs are naturally wired to want to complete that they no longer have an appropriate outlet for, such as chasing down prey and dissecting (ripping up) items such as toys. We can also think about what type of job our dog would have had in the past based on their breed - eg. pest control or livestock management, and what that job would have entailed. In the life of a modern pet dog, there are always needs that are going unmet just because of the lifestyle that we now expect dogs to lead alongside us. That’s where enrichment comes in!
Please note: these products are just general recommendations, I am not being paid to endorse these and the only product that will award me a commission for purchases made using my code is Tug-e-Nuff, which is further detailed below.
LickiMat products - Licking, Slow-feeding
Licking is extremely soothing for dogs, and can provide great stimulation and enrichment. You can also use lick-mats strategically, for instance as a way to keep your dog happy and in place while giving them a bath (stick a mat to one end of the bath and get to work!). LickiMat is the leading manufacturer of lick-mats, and they offer a range of products all designed for great, long-lasting enrichment opportunities.
Below are a few of my favourite of their products - click on the images to visit their website and to learn more about each. NB, each comes in a range of different colours, and you can also find them via other retailers so have a shop-around for the best price!
Kong and Toppl - Licking, Puzzle-Solving, Chewing, Play
Stuffable dog toys are no new thing - Kong have been manufacturing their most recognisable product for a long time now, and most dog households will probably have one tucked away somewhere, even if you have yet to work out the best way to use it! There are lots of other options being created now, with similarly performing toys such as the Toppl now available. Toppl allows you to stuff with a variety of ingredients, and can be made more complex by connecting two toys of different size together. Both toys allow for a range of activities - licking, problem-solving, chewing, and play. You can freeze them for a longer-lasting challenge, throw them for a bit of a game, they’re designed to be chewed and pawed at, and you can pop them in the dishwasher at the end of the day to keep them fresh.
Below are the products mentioned, again please click the image to visit retailer websites and to learn more. NB: All of these products come in a variety of sizes, so please check the sizing is appropriate for your dog. Kong creates their classic toy to suit different levels of chewing strength, so offer a classic, an extreme, and their puppy-suitable toys. Toppl also offers different sizing, albeit with less of a range, so again please check for suitability.
Tearribles - Dissection, Chasing, Tugging, Retrieving, Sniffing & Searching
Up until recently, these special dog toys were only available in the US, but fortunately at the end of 2023 they finally became available in the UK! Tearribles are toys designed to be ripped apart and put back together again, over and over again. Plenty of owners struggle with their dogs destroying toys, although this is a perfectly natural and enjoyable thing for many dogs to do. Tearribles lean into this, and have limbs that are all detachable and feature extra-strong velcro to make the tearing as fun and challenging as possible. You can play chase and retrieve, tug, and even scenting or searching games with the toy, by hiding the limbs around the room for them to find. Once they’ve got the toy to themselves, you can allow them to tear it apart, and then put it back together for them to go again. It’s advised that you don’t leave this toy down for them at all times, but instead play with it under supervision to ensure the longevity of the toy.
Below you can see the three different sizes / styles of Tearribles, and click through the images to see them on their UK website.
RuffleSnuffle - Sniffing
Snuffle mats are easy to find in most pet shops these days, but what a lot of dog parents don’t know is how to get the most out of them! Snuffle mats are designed to engage your dog’s nose, something which provides amazing mental stimulation - a Scentwork session (snuffle toys, find it type games, scatter feeding) can be as tiring as a session of physical exercise, and so this can be a great skill to tap into on days when you maybe can’t walk for as long or at all (bad weather, injury, illness etc), and as something fun and engaging for your dog to do in their regular life. The key with snuffle mats is to keep them about sniffing rather than just eating - so, choose something really crumbly to turn into a fairly fine dust and sprinkle this throughout the mat. You can hide larger pieces of treat here and there so that it still brings about some rewards, but what we want to get our dogs doing is sniffing and snuffling through the material.
You can buy these mats anywhere, but here is one retailer who offer high-quality mats, plus some other snuffle toys you may not have seen before! These are a great enrichment option for those of you with highly scent-oriented breeds in particular, but any dog can learn to use these items and enjoy them. NB: These mats have tons of colour options to choose from plus a range of sizes.
Nylabone and Benebone - Chewing
Chews are great for rewarding your dog plus giving them something engaging to do. They’re also great for ‘decompression’ after a walk or play session, and can help your dog to wind down to rest, something that they may otherwise struggle with. It can be tricky, however, to find the best option for your dog, particularly as we now know that many of the go-to chews of the past such as bone, antler, and rawhide, can be hazardous for our dogs’ health. This is where ‘durable’ chews made by the likes of Nylabone and Benebone can come in. These chew toys are made from materials such as nylon, and are designed to wear down gradually over use, not to be ingested. Due to the fact that they’re man-made, you can get them in all sorts of different shapes to suit different purposes, so these are great products to look at for things like teething for instance!
It’s also good to try to swap like-for-like where we’re getting ‘inappropriate’ chewing of things around the house, so for example if puppy is chewing the chair legs, step 1 is of course to try to remove access to the chair legs, but step 2 would be to give them something similar that they’re allowed to chew on, such as a Benebone wood-style chew. There’s always a reason your dog will be chewing something, be it for pain-relief during teething or any other reason in later life, so trying to replace the thing you don’t want them to chew with something totally different in texture won’t fulfil that need they have, and may lead to unwanted redirection elsewhere.
Below are a few examples of the many and varied products offered by these two companies - bear in mind that both offer puppy-specific chews for younger dogs, plus chews of varying durability for dogs who have stronger jaws, and all in different sizing.
Tug-e-Nuff - Tugging, Chasing, Retrieving
Tug-e-Nuff create a range of dog toys that encourage tug-type play, which can be great for enrichment, bonding, and even training as a method of reinforcement! They have toys to suit lots of different types of play within this realm of tugging, and use natural materials such as sheepskin and rabbitskin to make the toys even more enticing and exciting for your dog (faux versions also available). Check out their website for ideas on how to use the toys for training and play, and use code TOBYDUNCAN for 10% off your order (please note: use of this code will award me a small commission).
Below are a few of my favourite products offered, these also give an idea of their range.
K9 Connectables - Puzzle-solving, Chewing, Play
K9 Connectables make a unique type of puzzle toy, in that they sell tons of individual parts that can be connected together in a multitude of ways, giving you lots of opportunity to customise based on your dog’s needs and preferences, and to keep things new and challenging! As with a lot of chew and puzzle-based products, the components come at different levels of durability, and in different sizing. There are components aimed at dental care as well as some designed to be more challenging to solve than others.
Below are just a few examples of their various offerings - please note that there are bundles available that may be more cost effective, so make sure to have a look through their full range! Use the code TOBYDUNCANDOGS10 for a discount on purchases made via the K9 Connectables website.
Hopefully this blog post has got you thinking about all of the amazing opportunities now available to add some enrichment, excitement, and entertainment into your dog’s life! It’s worth bearing in mind that these products aren’t the only things available, there are plenty of variations on each, and indeed DIY methods for a lot of these that could help to save some money. If you’re not sure about your dog’s interest-level in certain activities, try a cheaper or DIY alternative and see how it goes. If your dog isn’t super fussed then no harm done, but if they love it then you know where to go to find top of the range supplies!
At the end of the day, it’s up to you to create opportunities for enrichment and fun in your dog’s life. You don’t need to break the bank to get started, and no dog is too old to try something new! If you have any comments or questions for me on this, please leave them below, and I’d be more than happy to talk with you on this topic.