Tori Mistick [00:01:40]:
Personally, I have seen firsthand how beneficial mental enrichment, AKA cognitive enrichment, can be for your dogs. So my previous dog, Lucy, who passed away earlier this year, she was sharp up until the very last moment, which made saying goodbye to her even harder. But she lived a very long, happy life. She was with it up until the very, very end. And it’s because we were constantly doing all different kinds of enrichment, including different mental puzzles and trick training. That’s actually something that Lucy and I started doing when she was eight years old, so you’ll find out later in this episode. Old dogs can most certainly learn new tricks, and Lucy was a great example of that. So she started learning tricks around age 8.

Tori Mistick [00:02:27]:
We got her novice trick dog title from the AKC and then she went on to get an intermediate trick dog title when like 10 or 11 years old. So double digits, baby. And then my dog Bert, who’s sitting next to me right now, I have seen firsthand how much of a positive impact mental enrichment has had on him and his mental state. So Bert’s my rescue pup. I got him when he was six or seven years old and he came to me with quite a bit of anxiety and he definitely has separation anxiety from me because we’re very bonded together now. We do everything together. And he’s very, very devoted dog, which is wonderful. I love that for him.

Tori Mistick [00:03:10]:
But I don’t want him to feel nervous and anxious when I’m not around. So doing different mental challenges and teaching him tricks and teaching him how to solve puzzles has really built his confidence and it has truly helped with his separation anxiety and his just like, general level of anxiety. So I’m really excited to bring to you some ideas here. Basically, mental enrichment are activities that ask your dog to think, choose, remember and adapt. So while we love lick mats and we love Snifaris, this is really the brain side of enrichment, the brainy games that we’re gonna get into and they really do help to build confidence and calm. And in this episode I’m gonna share with you 5 different scientific reviews and reports that I found that show all of the different benefits of mental enrichment. Of course, I would love to tell you about everything I could find about mental enrichment, but this episode would be like eight hours long. So I am going to put this into a bite sized, easy to understand format so that hopefully you learn something really cool about dogs and also learn some great ideas that you can implement with your own dog.

Tori Mistick [00:04:30]:
So I don’t want you just to listen and not take any action. I’m going to give you lots of ideas for different activities and games you can play with your dog to get all of these benefits in the life that you share together. So if you are new to this podcast, which you are by definition because it’s a brand new show, make sure that you subscribe or follow wherever you are listening to this. And don’t forget, this show is a video podcast as well. So you can watch the video through Spotify and also on YouTube. And I have some different fun interactive features happening on both of those platforms. So make sure to answer the poll, do the quizzes, comment, and tell me all about you and your dog. So I’m gonna get into these scientific studies at the end.

Tori Mistick [00:05:17]:
After that, I’ll share with you some really practical ways that you can implement this in your real life. I have a quick Q and A from some listeners and then I’m gonna share with you a couple of Mental Enrichment products that I really use and really love. All right, should we dive into it? The first study that I want to share with you is really cool and it’s all about how small training, small, quick Training can help change how dogs face their problems and challenges in their life. So 118 pet dogs were involved in this study. And I’m going to link to all of my resources and everything that I’m citing. All my sources will be in the show notes. So if you go to toriknowsdogs.com which will redirect you to my blog, wherewagrepeat.com you will find all the show notes and all the sources for all of this. So this study, it took 118 pet dogs, and it asked them to solve a food puzzle.

Tori Mistick [00:06:18]:
And it showed that about half of the dogs who’d had a lot of different training in their life, they were really successful. And they kept working hard to figure out this puzzle and get to the food that was inside of it. The other half of the dogs that were not really, well, they were pet dogs. And they didn’t do a lot of enrichment or training with their people. They spent a lot of the time in this study looking back at their owner and looking back at the researcher, and they were not as successful in solving this food puzzle. So what’s really interesting about this is that it shows that teaching your dog to enjoy learning inspires them to keep learning and to keep overcoming challenges and figuring out new things. So how this applies to your real life, you’re like, well, I’m not gonna make my dog solve a million puzzles if they’re not good at it and they don’t like it. But you really should, because it’s gonna help your dog adapt to changes and different situations and unpredictable situations that they might be in.

Tori Mistick [00:07:17]:
So, like, for instance, with Bert, he gets really nervous when we go to new places, and he gets nervous in new houses. So, like, if we stay at an Airbnb, he’s very nervous, and I really can’t leave him alone. But by doing more of these types of. This study shows that teaching your dog to love to learn helps them be more open to different challenges and uncertain situations in the future. So you can just do really quick little training bursts and different kind of games with your dog, and you’re going to teach them that trying something is worthwhile. It’s a habit that you’re building to teach them to keep trying to solve a puzzle, and it’s going to help build their confidence. So I thought that was really cool. The second study that I want to share with you is all about neuroplasticity.

Tori Mistick [00:08:07]:
This is a term that we love to talk about in the dog training world and the dog behavior World. And in plain English, neuroplasticity means that the brain can change with practice, so it can strengthen different connections. You’re thinking of like the neuro pathways going through your brain or your dog’s brain and they can change and adapt based on what you’re regularly doing. So I’m going to link in the show notes to a study that was done with some working dogs done back in 2019 by Gabriella Gulfe and her colleagues. And what they found in this study was that working detection dogs, so dogs that are specifically trained to detect sense and search and rescue dogs, they measured their blood levels before and after different search training. So right after they were doing some serious problem solving work like sniffing, searching and having to make choices and decisions along the way that there was a little bump in their body’s ready to learn signals, there was a bump in how receptive their brain was to change. So this is really cool because it shows that these short sessions that require your dog to think really hard and work really hard, they’re not just tiring out their brain, but they’re actually flipping on a switch in their brain that says is, we’re ready to learn, we’re ready to change, and we’re ready to adapt. So this is really cool because I see so many people and pet parents talking about, you know, I want to do brain games to tire out my dog.

Tori Mistick [00:09:47]:
Instead of going on a five mile walk, I think I’m going to do some puzzles inside and my dog’s going to be all tired out. But the goal of enrichment is not to tire out your dog, it is to give your dog a better quality of life. So this study done in 2019 really shows that by doing cognitive games and mentally challenging games and activities for your dog, it’s actually rewiring their brain and making them more open to learning new things and more open to adapting. So we don’t just want to tire out our dogs, we want to make them better and smarter and happier. And this is really proof that enrichment is the key to doing that. So I thought this was really cool. And I want to share with you just a couple of quick examples of how you could do this in your real life, because I’m guessing your dog’s probably not a trained search and rescue dog. Bert is a trained search for deer bones in the woods dog.

Tori Mistick [00:10:46]:
But I’m not sure that that would be recognized in an official study. But here’s a couple of ideas of what you could be doing to help your dog work on their neuroplasticity so number one is simply changing the route that you go on your walk. Let your dog choose which direction you’re going to go and let them do sort of a sniff walk to investigate the area. A second idea is to do a quick two minute trick burst. So if you’re on a walk and you’re kind of ho hum, doing the same thing all over again, or you’re working from home, maybe hop up and do a quick burst of just a bunch of little tricks with your dog. And that is really going to boost their, like this study said, it’s going to boost their brain and be ready to learn and ready to adapt. So even two minutes can make a big impact. If you love doing puzzles with your dog, try moving the puzzle to a new spot.

Tori Mistick [00:11:39]:
Try putting it on a stair or inside of a box or something like that. And then you can also offer choice. So something that was really important in this study with the search and rescue dogs is that they had to make choices along the way and that really opened up those portals for neuroplasticity. So you can give your dog a choice. Do you want to do a treat burrito towel game or do you want to do a Nina Ottison puzzle or a snuffle mat? Put two of these things in front of your dog and let them choose which one they want to do. So try this out with your dog and remember that short and varied is going to beat long and repetitive every time. So really the key to enrichment, I’m going to let you in on the point of this entire show, all of season one, is that variety is the key to enrichment. So like I said, two minutes here, two minutes there, and constantly changing it up and switching it up, that is going to give your dog the best mental enrichment.

Tori Mistick [00:12:39]:
Okay, now segment number three, or study number three that I want to share with you is all about senior dogs, which is something that is near and dear to my heart. Like I said, I rescued Bert when he was 6 or 7, so he counted as a senior dog and now he is 13 and a half. And we just said goodbye to Sweet Lucy at 13 and a half as well. So there are studies that prove that old dogs can learn new tricks. And I love this, I know this, but I want you to know this and I want everyone to hear about this. So there was a study done by Sophia Bogner and her colleagues. They ran a three month study that combined cognitive enrichment, physical enrichment, and then there was also some combined programs that had all of those things as a part of them. They had 72 senior pet dogs.

Tori Mistick [00:13:31]:
They ranged from 8 years old to over 14 years old. And so she really wanted to see if doing different physical and cognitive enrichment or combining physical and cognitive together, if that was going to boost these dogs behavior and their mentality and their mindset. So they talked about flexibility and social behavior. And so like I said, flexibility is that like being willing to adapt, being open to change, and not being afraid of change, which is something that we want for all of our dogs. We don’t want them to be afraid. We want our dogs to be confident, calm and happy. So this study done by Sophia Bogner and her colleagues, so it really found that enrichment of all kinds is essential for senior dogs eight years older and up. But what it did show is that it’s better if you start earlier.

Tori Mistick [00:14:27]:
So however old your dog is right now, I want to make sure that you’re starting to do different enrichment activities with them. Don’t wait so you can sprinkle different brain games throughout their lives. It’s always good to start soon. But if your dog is already a senior, if your dog’s already in those double digits, it’s not too late to start. If you’re in that situation, you’ve never done any enrichment at all ever before. That’s okay. You can start right now. Just start really small and simple.

Tori Mistick [00:14:58]:
You can expose your dog to new textures, you can give them a new easy puzzle to solve, or you can teach them tiny little trick. So especially for senior dogs, tricks that I love are spin and twist, because not only are they learning a new trick, but they’re getting a really great workout for their spine mobility, which is so good for them to keep active and keep mobile late into life. All right, now let’s talk about the smartest dog in the world. Have you ever heard of the smartest dog in the world? It’s a border collie named Chaser. So back in 2014, 60 Minutes sent Anderson Cooper to meet a border collie named Chaser. She was part of a study at Woeford College where these researchers, plus Chaser the dog, did a series of experiments because they wanted to test this dog’s capacity at learning words and like the meaning of words as well. So this is really cool. The four different experiments they did, they started off, number one was they taught Chaser 1022 object names.

Tori Mistick [00:16:15]:
So every single object there was 1022 proper noun names for different objects. They also taught her different verbs that were actions like take this thing, fetch, hold, find, you know, that kind of stuff. They Also had categories for the toys, like, these are all stuffed animals, these are all balls, these are all ropes, whatever. And then they also found that Chaser was capable of fast mapping to make assumptions about what new words were. This is so cool. So they would put out a pile of all these different toys and objects that Chaser knew the words for. And they would put something that she didn’t know, a brand new item. And they would say, go fetch tomato or whatever it was.

Tori Mistick [00:17:08]:
And Chaser would look at the group of items and say, well, I know what all of these are and I don’t know what that one is, so that must be tomato. And she would go fetch that one. It’s like, amazing. Honestly, I think she really might be one of the smartest dogs in the world. So this is just so cool and I love sharing this study. If you haven’t watched this segment ever before with Anderson Cooper, you should go watch, because Chaser is really fun to watch. But you don’t necessarily need to teach your dog 10, 22 different words. So for us normal people, we can start by teaching our dogs just a couple of words.

Tori Mistick [00:17:48]:
So you can actually teach your dog to fetch something by name. And I’m guessing that your dog probably has some favorite toys at home. They probably have a stuffed animal that’s their baby, right? And so you’re like, go get your baby. Lucy was so smart. She had her favorite baby. And sometimes her baby was upstairs and we would be downstairs and I could just tell that she was looking for it. She, like, needed it. Where is it? And I said, lucy, your baby is upstairs.

Tori Mistick [00:18:15]:
Go find. And she would run upstairs, she’d find it. She’d have to go usually in a room around a piece of furniture and find it. And then she would bring it downstairs. And that was really cool. And I was always so proud of her when she did that. And so you can totally do this with your dogs. And in fact, I have a step by step tutorial in my mental enrichment activity pack that walks you through exactly how to do this.

Tori Mistick [00:18:40]:
And there’s a cool video of me and Lucy demonstrating how to fetch a toy by name. And I show you how to get started and how to get really good at it. So basically, you really just need to, like, two different toys that your dog loves. And the key here is to really start playing with one of them. And you’re like, you know, get your frog. This is the frog. Go like, tug the frog, Pick up the frog, fetch the frog. You really reinforce frog to your dog or whatever the toy is.

Tori Mistick [00:19:10]:
And that really helps them learn the name. And there are some other studies that I read that showed that that kind of of intense playing for just two minutes really did help the dog learn the name of different things. So that’s something that you can do with your dog and slowly help them learn the names of things. And then this is wonderful mental enrichment and cognitive enrichment is to teach your dog to fetch things by name. So you might have frog and you might have bear, and they can go around and fetch those and bring them back to you. Speaking of vocabulary, number five that we have here is all about talking dogs. So have you seen the dogs that are talking with buttons on the Internet? You might be familiar with Hunger for Words, which is Christina Hunger’s account with her dog Stella. Or what about Bunny, which is Alexis Devine’s account with her dog Bunny.

Tori Mistick [00:20:07]:
Those are sort of the two most famous talking dogs with the talking buttons accounts. These talking dog buttons are so hot right now. They’ve been hot for several years. Right? This is not a brand new thing, but there is a brand new review that just came out this year in 2025, about are these really effective? Is this really doing anything? And the study is actually called let’s Talk About Talking Dog. So I read through this study and it showed that there was a little bit of debate about whether this really works or not. So obviously Christina and Alexis are getting their dogs to speak to them. They’re really getting their dogs to communicate feelings and times and plans and stuff with them. Very complex thoughts.

Tori Mistick [00:21:02]:
But not everyone is doing it in that kind of a way. So usually these buttons are, you know, you train your dog to press a button and it says they want to go outside or they need their water refilled. This review that just came out this year in 2025, it’s showing that there is a little bit of debate about this. And one of the main issues is that these buttons don’t. When you record your voice saying, you know, outside or water or play the button, audio can be a little like, unclear or distorted. And, and so this review was just saying that we’re unclear if dogs really are understanding the word or if it’s just like a sound that’s kind of getting distorted to them. So I thought that was something kind of interesting. They also warned that being too reliant on these buttons and being too obsessed with the buttons could kind of take away from observing your dog’s actual signals and their actual body language and other ways they’re trying to communicate with you.

Tori Mistick [00:22:00]:
So that’s kind of an, an extreme level. On a more like practical day to day level for normal people like you and I, we can definitely have fun with these buttons. I would say aim for getting your dog to understand what like one or two of these buttons mean. So maybe it is to go outside or they want to do a lick mat or something like that. Giving them that option of choice. You know, do they want to do a snuffle mat or a lick mat? Again, incorporating that element of, of choice could be something really cool to experiment with here. But ultimately you want to get really reliable with one button before you start adding another one in there. And you want to keep these sessions short and fun.

Tori Mistick [00:22:39]:
Enrichment should always be fun. It should never be frustrating. Real quick to wrap up this button talk. I did try training these buttons with my dog Lucy, because she was such a little brainiac. And we worked on the outside button first. So I, I spoke into a button I recorded outside and she would tap it to go out. What I found was that Lucy and I had a pretty advanced communication system with each other already. So I was already really clear on what she wanted, what she needed.

Tori Mistick [00:23:14]:
And so we kind of put the buttons aside and I stopped using them. But the real silver lining and the lesson that I learned from the buttons was that I already had wonderful communication skills with my dog Lucy. And to me, that was really the best lesson that I could have learned from experimenting with that. I want you to not just listen to this episode, but I want you to really take action. So here’s a couple of ideas that I think any dog could start working on that would be really great cognitive and mental enrichment. And remember, every episode this season, I’m doing eight different episodes, about eight different categories of enrichment. Because I see so many people talking about, let’s just do puzzles or let’s stuff a Topple or stuff a Kong or do a Snafari. But there’s so much more that you could be doing.

Tori Mistick [00:24:05]:
And I think this episode hopefully shined a light on all the different things that you could be doing. So, one, I love fetch by name. And again, I have a full tutorial and instructions on how to do that in my Mental Enrichment Activity pack, which is a quick little bite sized digital course that you can sign up for. It’s $19, so it’s the same or less than buying a brand new puzzle toy. And it comes with 10 different mental enrichment activities that you can do with your dog. And Lucy and I do demonstrate how to do fetch by name in There and their step by step instructions as well. So that’s really fun. Chain of events is something that I’ve kind of alluded to a little bit in some of these studies.

Tori Mistick [00:24:51]:
But teaching your dog to do compound actions. So for example, the chain of events might be they touch a button, they go to their place or their mat and they lay down. That could be a chain of events that then triggers a reward like a tasty treat or a chew or a snuffle mat or something like that. So teaching your dog these chain of events, it’s a little bit more complex. It’s asking your dog to think a little bit more and to put a couple different actions together and that’s really great mental enrichment. Another thing that I love is a puzzle remix. This is the remix. So for a puzzle remix, you can put your puzzle, like a Nina Ottison puzzle, or outward hound or zippy paws.

Tori Mistick [00:25:41]:
Any of these puzzles that you have, even a snuffle mat, counts for this. Put your puzzle inside of a box and your dog has to open the box to get to the puzzle. Put your puzzle up on a stair or I like to use household items like I’m always saving toilet paper rolls. You can oftentimes stick those into the puzzle in different ways to kind of make it different and new. And something else I love to do is a puzzle swap with some of my dog friends. So, of course make sure to clean and sanitize your puzzles and swap with dogs that you know and you trust so you’re not swapping any germs. But, you know, once your dog kind of gets a little bit bored and you’ve done as much remixing as you can, just swap with a friend. There’s no need to buy something brand new all the time.

Tori Mistick [00:26:27]:
This has been so fun. Talking about mental enrichment. I am going to get into the Q and A now. So every episode I take one or two different questions from listeners or that I find from my audience out on the Internet, and I’m gonna answer them with my own experiences and my expertise as a canine enrichment technician. So our first question actually comes to us from Reddit. So this person is saying that they know that mental, emotional and physical enrichment is very important for your dog every day. So they’re on the right track. But they say that they’re not often very good at doing all of these exercises all of the time.

Tori Mistick [00:27:09]:
Could they possibly take their dog to a daycare and have the daycare do all these games and activities and give their dog a job? My thoughts on this I really love this question because I think that a lot of daycares are offering enrichment, and that’s awesome. There’s a daycare around me that has ball pits, and I don’t know, they must do other activities. I’ve seen the ball pit, I’ve seen agility stuff, and maybe they do some, like, scent work and stuff with the dogs. I’m not exactly clear because I think that you shouldn’t outsource your enrichment. Enrichment is really a great way to bond with your dog. So while it’s great that they might be doing these things at your doggie daycare or that there’s different facilities that you can find that offer these kinds of things, but the key is you have to really do it together. So enrichment is a great way to build your bond with your dog. And I just think that outsourcing it is kind of missing the whole point of it.

Tori Mistick [00:28:06]:
So even if you’re just doing a few quick minutes like these, studies that I shared showed that even just two or three minutes is going to give your dog a mental boost, a brain power boost. It’s going to enhance their confidence and their calmness and their willingness to adapt to new situations. So I would say don’t outsource this to a doggie daycare. If they do offer it, that’s a nice bonus, but it’s not something that I would rely on. I would keep this in house. All right, question number two. And this is another one that I love from my friend Charlotte at CharlotteWithDogs. So she said, what are the easiest ways to do enrichment on a budget or for $0? Girl, you are speaking my language because I love budget enrichment.

Tori Mistick [00:28:54]:
I already told you, you can swap puz your friends. I don’t think we should go out and have to buy brand new things all the time. There’s so much enrichment just sitting around your house. So my number one favorite low cost thing is a busy box. A busy box is basically using recycling and different containers and things that you have around your house to make a fresh new puzzle for your dog every single time. And you can use cardboard boxes, egg cartons, yogurt containers, packing paper, anything that you can imagine that is safe for your dog to interact with. And you layer all these things together into a box and you sprinkle some kibble or some treats. It’s almost like a Russian nesting doll.

Tori Mistick [00:29:36]:
So we have like little yogurt containers, small boxes, bigger boxes, and your dog has to solve this Russian nesting doll puzzle, this busy box that you’ve created for them. And I love this because it’s different every single time. We do this, this all the time. You can also do a like a little sniff and seek a scavenger hunt by scatter feeding your dog, you know, sprinkle their kibble across your room or across the grass. Obviously fetching by name is a zero cost thing. You just need two objects. And then another great shaping game that you can do for cognitive enrichment is going from mat A to mat B. So maybe you come up with two different names for these and you have your dog go from a bath mat to a yoga mat or from their bed to a yoga mat or a towel and you ask your dog to just keep going back to the others and maybe in between you ask them to come to you and then go to mat B and then come to you and then go to mat A and then go to mat B.

Tori Mistick [00:30:38]:
You know what I mean? You’re switching it up. It’s almost like a little game of Simon’s says for your dog. And then finally I got a shout out playing some calming dog music because that’s a really great no cost thing. You can stream dog music online for free. And I recommend looking up Lisa Spector. She created Dog Gone Calm and also the brand new out this year, Chopin for dogs that she plays herself on the piano. I hope that advice helps you, Charlotte and anyone else who is listening. All right, the last thing that I want to share with you before I wrap up this episode is a quick little product spotlight and shout out.

Tori Mistick [00:31:17]:
So first of all, I have the book How Stella Learned to Talk. If you are really interested in dog cognition and teaching the buttons, this book is by Christina Hunger and she is a speech language pathologist and it’s her dog, Stella, who was really one of the first dogs to really get famous for speaking with the buttons. But this is a really cool book about how your dog’s brain works. So go and check that out and then I want to share with you one of my favorite Nina Ottison puzzles. So this I believe is called the Twister. It twists, so I think that’s what it’s called. But it has three different levels and they each have compartments where you can hide treats or kibble or whatever it is that you want to put in there. But I have played this puzzle with dogs of all ages, from a 10 week old puppy, Luca, who came over to visit me recently, to 13 year old Bert.

Tori Mistick [00:32:18]:
And everyone has fun with this and there’s a lot of different ways that you can switch it up. And change it around to make it fun and interesting for your dog. So highly recommend this puzzle. And then of course I’ve already shouted out my Mental Enrichment Activity Pack a few times, but it’s only $19 and it comes with 10 different activities with videos of Lucy and I showing you exactly how to do it and step by step written instructions. You can find that also@toriknowsdogs.com and I would love for you to check out that course, so tune in next week. Episode three is going to be all about Food baby enrichment and I’m really excited about that one because there’s more to food based enrichment than just stuffing, topples and kongs. So I’m going to give you lots of cool ideas about that and make sure to follow and subscribe this show wherever you’re listening to it. And go to toriknowsdogs.com podcast to grab some freebies, find the show notes and of course get more info on my own Mental Enrichment Activity Pack that you can enroll in.

Tori Mistick [00:33:23]:
And if you enjoyed listening to this show. It’s a brand new show so please help me get the word out by sharing this with your friends and tagging me on social media. Eemistic thanks again for listening and I’ll see you back here next week.