I've been thinking about this project for a while, but midway was wondering what I got myself in to. I wanted to use it for my home based clients, but also make a few for our group classes at Kommetjie Canine College. I'm glad I finished it as the dogs and owners had so much fun. They've been working on tugging, taking tissues out of a box, handkerchief out of pockets, so pulling at the tug to open the gate was relatively easy for them. How smart are they!? I love seeing owners and dogs having fun while learning.
We often talk about mental stimulation for dogs and know that food dispensers help with this. It helps relieve stress, anxiety and boredom to 'work' for or chew food. But do we ever consider our cats?
Most outdoor cats get quite a bit of stimulation outdoors where they can 'practice' their natural behaviours like hunting when stalking birds, butterflies and leaves. They're able to climb up trees and most of their needs are met outdoors.
However what about those rainy days? We're currently in stormy weather and my cats have been cooped up inside. When it's this stormy they're not too keen on going outside as it's cold, wet and miserable out there.
This afternoon one of my cats was bored, walking aimlessly around the house and would stand by the door and then go back inside again. After a while he wanted to play with our older cat, but she really wasn't keen and just wanted to rest. So I brought out the smaller Kongs and filled them with treats. Both cats loved it and kept them busy for quite a while. And Tao the younger cat soon settled afterwards, satisfied. He needed to work for the treats, which kept him busy and playing with the kong by batting it around also satisfied his playing needs.
All animals need stimulation, else they can become bored, frustrated and restless too.
Strawberry having fun during another clicker training session. She's learning about 'staying' in one spot so that we can walk around her or go and fetch something without needing to take her with us if needed. She's also learning about proprioception - learning about body movement and in this case a figure of 8. And just for fun... Dribbling a ball. I'm really enjoying working with this girly.
My dog has a sore back and I've been trying to get some more ideas to stimulate her without doing something too physical. I decided to improvise using one of her rubber balls with material and some of her food rolled in this evening. It was a hit and kept her busy for quite a while. One very happy, stimulated and full tummy furychild later.
Couldn't face the laptop anymore (felt like I was getting square eyes)... So I decided to make an enrichment food dispenser for my dogs. Procrastination at it's best, but at least the dogs benefited from it. 😊
I've been wanting to make a sample snuffle mat to show my clients how dogs enjoy scavenging for food and how great it is for mental stimulation too.
What a better place to make one than at an agility show and I had many very happy dogs wanting to try it out and roped a fellow friend to help me make it. I decided that the first little dog to try it out was to be someones foster puppy, who within about 5 seconds couldn't get enough of it and had an absolute ball sniffing out all the treats.
I then wanted to see if this specific snuffle mat would work on an adult dog and decided that I'd use my fury godchild. She loved it too. She's very gentle so it worked absolutely fine.
For a dog that may play more roughly and tend to rip things easily, a bigger more robust mat would be needed. A thick rubber garden mat would work just fine then.
