What is Mental Enrichment?

Mental Enrichment and Stimulation

Mental enrichment and stimulation is a way to help your pet acquire problem solving skills, build confidence, learn more efficiently, and improves their quality of life. It is recommended for your pet to engage in mental enrichment and stimulation several times throughout the day. There are a variety of different ways for you to provide your pet mental enrichment and stimulation, see below.

Food/ Puzzle Toys

A food or puzzle toy requires your pet to use their brain to figure out how to get the treat or food that is inside. These types of toys can be utilized for playtime, feeding time, preventing unwanted behaviors (such as inappropriate chewing and predatory behaviors) as well as for independence training. While physical exercise is very important, nothing can wear out your pet like using their brain.

Structured Training

By using positive reinforcement training techniques this can be a great way to build your relationship with your pet, as well as prevent unwanted behavior and/or improve behavior. Check out the training videos tab here in the portal for different training protocols and trick training!

Environmental/ Play

Allowing the animal to explore their surroundings at their own pace, gives them the opportunity to gather information about their environment, and therefore increasing brain activity and mental well-being. Listed below are some examples or how to provide environmental enrichment:

·        Exploratory time in the yard, sniff walk, or a dig dox

·        Catios for cats, added shelving for climbing, cat tv, cat friendly plants: mint, parsley, and cat grass.

Also, providing daily interactive play with your pet can help strengthen the human animal bond, and add to their quality of life. So, play tug with your pup, get out that wand or laser for your cat and have some fun!

What are some of the ways that you provide mental enrichment for your furry companions?