Are Your Pets Bored?
Did you know that you can prevent, reduce, and even eliminate many problem behaviors just by adding some enrichment activities to your pet’s life?
For many animals, boredom is a real problem. With our busy lives and long workdays, our pets are often left to their own devices for far too many hours. Depending on the animal’s activity level, if we don’t give them something to do to occupy their time, they’ll find something to do themselves, and it’s usually not something that we want!
Things like chewing on the furniture and walls, excessive vocalizations, peeing or pooping in inappropriate places, and aggressive behaviors, are often symptoms of boredom.
Here are some simple solutions you can start implementing now to reduce your pet’s boredom:
Ditch the food bowl
Why waste perfectly good reinforcement and enrichment opportunities by allowing your pet to mindlessly eat out of a food bowl? Instead, try feeding your pets their meals via food puzzles, food dispensing toys, or training sessions. Need inspiration? Check out the many enrichment groups on Facebook for ideas!
Take your pet for a sniff
Most people walk their dogs solely for elimination purposes or for exercise, but walks can also be a great way to engage your dog’s sense of smell, which is incredibly important for his/her behavioral health. The same applies to many other species, like foxes, servals, and even badgers! Training your pet to walk on harness and lead gives them the opportunity to explore new smells in new places.
If leash training and walks are not an option, consider creating a temporary outdoor enclosure that can be easily moved so that your pet can explore novel environments and new, interesting smells in a contained space. Or, bring new smells to their current space.
Scavenger hunt!
Providing your pet with toys to play with while you’re gone is a great idea but you can make it even more interesting by hiding these toys for them to randomly find. Consider putting a toy between the couch cushions with just a tiny bit sticking out. You can also hide a toy partially behind a door or under a rug. You’ll love the look of surprise on your pet’s face when they discover their toys in the most random places! If your pet is caged, rotating toys every few days can help keep them interesting.
Another option is to hide treats all around a room or even your pet’s cage, while your pet is somewhere else, then let them in the room to find the treats. Most animals LOVE this game once they get the hang of it!
Train your pet
Not only does training serve to create a more obedient and manageable pet, but it also has the added benefit of enriching your pet’s life. Consider trick training as a fun alternative to the more serious training that you’ve probably already done. Training for a particular sport like Agility or Treibball can be great fun for your dog, but don’t forget that your other animals can learn these same sports, even if they never actually compete.
Need some inspiration? Check out domorewithyourdog.com Even though the site is dedicated to dogs, many other animal species have earned their “trick dog” titles as well!