Tori Mistick [00:01:36]:
All right, so let’s get into this episode. First of all, starting off, what exactly is environmental enrichment? So basically it’s about changing or adding things to your dog’s physical environment, the space that they inhabit in the world so that they can do dog things. So whether that is digging, exploring, climbing on things, sniffing, maybe stalking and hunting some sort of prey, if they’re that kind of dog. Navigating obstacles, choosing where to go, experiencing novelty of all kinds. Basically, you want to think, what were your dog’s ancestors doing out in the wild? They were always faced with different experiences. Novelty. The seasons changed, where things were changed, other animals came and went. Things were constantly changing.

Tori Mistick [00:02:27]:
So your dog actually instinctually likes this kind of novelty and change. And I’m gonna share with you some different studies in a little bit about how we can see that that is true. Now, I also did look up a definition from the Ohio State University’s veterinary college that is one of the top veterinary colleges in the country. And so their definition is environmental enrichment manipulates an animal’s surroundings to increase physical activity and species typical behavior while reducing stress by g control over their environment. So if you have been listening to this podcast from episode one, we’re currently on episode seven, you will have heard that novelty and choice are two really important parts of canine enrichment. So giving your dog access to small choices throughout the day, and for today’s topic, choices about what parts of their environment they’re interacting with and how they choose to interact with them is super, super important and very enriching to your dog’s life. Another definition I looked at was from Purdue University’s animal welfare program and they said something similar. They noticed that when dogs live in boring, barren environments, they’re more likely to bark excessively, pace, chew or lick themselves excessively and just seem restless.

Tori Mistick [00:03:49]:
But when you add in novel elements, their behavior improves. So dogs that live in a very boring environment, like imagine dogs who are in a shelter where they’re usually in a kennel for a long time. I actually rescued Bert. He’d been in a shelter for over a year when I met him. And Action for Animals in Latrobe, Pennsylvania is where I got him. And they are amazing, amazing people and they did everything they could. But Bert spent a lot of his time in his kennel by himself because that’s just the nature of how things work there. So the first day that I met Bert, he was bouncing off the walls.

Tori Mistick [00:04:26]:
But I knew, having been a Labrador mom for over 20 years, that he really just needed some outlets, he needed some ex. And I knew that if I could get him home with us, that he would be a wonderful dog. And he’s been by my side ever since. So I really have seen this firsthand. Now, before we get into this study that I wanna share with you, I do wanna share one little quote that I learned when I was getting my canine enrichment certification. And that comes from Eduardo Fernandez. He is the senior lecturer of Applied Animal Behavior and Welfare at the University of Adelaide in Australia. And so Eduardo Fernandez, accepted explains that enrichment is only enrichment if it measurably improves a dog’s behavior or physiology.

Tori Mistick [00:05:10]:
So basically, if it didn’t work, it wasn’t enriching. So that’s why on this podcast, it’s so important to me to look at different studies and then explain them in plain English so we can all understand what the benefits are of this enrichment. Because I think once you understand the benefits, people are a lot more likely to do this in their day to day life with their dogs. So today’s big theme is that novelty matters. And also rotating and trying out different activities and surroundings and stuff also really matters. So let’s get into the study that really explains this for us. There was a 2022 study done through the International association of Animal Behavior Consultants Journal. This was done by Rebecca Hunt and Dr.

Tori Mistick [00:05:53]:
Helen Vaterlas Whiteside. And in this study, they looked at dogs that were in training to be assistance dogs. So, like service dogs in training, these dogs spent the weekdays in a training facility, like an office environment. And then on the weekends, they went home to, like, the puppy raisers and the dog raisers who were raising them to be future assistance and service dogs. And so in this study, they gave the people who were raising the dogs on the weekend a very precise protocol of activities. There were seven different enrichment activities that they wanted to rotate on a regular basis so that they could then measure the difference and impact that it had on the dogs. So remember, Eduardo told us, if it doesn’t work, it’s not enriching. So in this study, they were really looking to see what actually helped the dogs relax more and have less kind of alert behaviors, just generally have relaxed behaviors, but also measurable relaxation.

Tori Mistick [00:06:53]:
So the seven different activities that they included were playing with another dog, playing tug with their handler, the people on the weekend, a bonding session with their person, an interactive food toy like a puzzle toy, a stuffed food toy like a Kong or a topple, a bubble machine with bacon scented bubbles, and then finally a toddler playhouse that they were allowed to climb in and out of, go down the slide, go up the stairs, do whatever they wanted with this playhouse. And what was really cool about this study is they noticed that the novel and physical activities made the best. The biggest difference. So I mentioned at the top of the episode that the food toys did not have as much of a difference on these dogs. So let’s kind of look into this and explain why we think that is the case. So they noticed the most increase in relaxation behaviors from playing with a doggy friend. That was number one. The bacon scented bubble machine was number two.

Tori Mistick [00:07:54]:
And then number three was this playhouse that they let the dogs play play in. And then they also noticed that alert behaviors dropped the most after playing with the dog friend, the bacon bubbles, and the playhouse. So those are really the top three things of the environmental enrichment activities that they studied with these dogs that had the biggest impact. We also noticed the smallest improvements came from the stuffed food toys or the interactive food toys. So that’s like kongs topples, those outward hound puzzles, all of that kind of stuff had the least positive impact on the dogs in this particular study. Now, are we saying that those things are bad? No, no, no, no. We’re not saying that at all. And we have other episodes on this podcast about food based enrichment and cognitive enrichment and how all of those things are really great as part of your enrichment routine.

Tori Mistick [00:08:46]:
But what this study basically found was that your dog needs new and novel experiences. So the researchers had a, like a summary at the end that said that they believe that this, these results were the case because the dogs were already accustomed to using food based toys and they were already used to doing these puzzles and licking stuff through a con. They’d been getting that for their whole lives. They had never in their lives before seen a bacon scented bubble machine and they had never had the opportunity to play in a toddler playhouse. So they think that that is part of the reason why those two things were the most effective because of the novelty and variety that they had in the dog’s life. Also, I have to mention number one on a lot of these tests that they did in this study was playing with another doggy friend. So actually, episode eight, we are going to get into social enrichment and that’s going to be a really wonderful element to look at because we haven’t really covered that yet at all on this podcast. But for today, we are still sticking with environmental enrichment.

Tori Mistick [00:09:50]:
So I really am excited about this study and how it clearly shows that providing variety and novelty and these are simple things that you can. I actually already mentioned the scented bubbles on our visual enrichment episode. So we know that dogs love to see that like falling leaf or falling bubble kind of look. But adding in the scented sensation and just the novelty of it all is going to make it really enriching for your dog. So with all of this in mind, let’s look at a couple of activities that you can actually do with your dog in the very near future. I think that environmental enrichment is something that almost seems like so, so big and hard to understand that it’s misunderstood by a lot of people. So I wanna give you a couple of ideas that you can actually start doing right now with your dog. So let’s start off with number one, the weekend playhouse.

Tori Mistick [00:10:41]:
So since we know from this study that giving your dog an opportunity to play with a little playhouse was really, really effective at reducing stressful behaviors and helping them be calmer, I would encourage everyone to go out and find a playhouse and let your dog play with it for the weekend so you can find in local big box stores. I also would say look on Facebook Marketplace because this is something that people are often getting rid of. Get it, give it a quick sanitize, throw it in the backyard and let your dogs play around with it. Now what’s going to make this most effective is if you share it with your doggie friends. So make sure to wipe it down before you pass it on to another dog friend. Because novelty is really the key here. So if you want to team up with some of your dog mom friends and like all get a doggy playhous and then you can have shared custody of it, that would be a really fun and wonderful way to enrich your dog’s life. So remember that giving them short term access to these things so it’s not like a permanent fixture that’s just in the yard that they’re going to get bored of.

Tori Mistick [00:11:47]:
Keeping it fresh and keeping it different, it was what makes it enriching. So that brings us to our second doggy activity idea and that is to set up a pop up adventure park. So in some of my other content, you might see me talk about this as surface circus, but it’s basically the same thing. You want to gather together a whole bunch of stuff that you already have at home. So it could be boxes, laundry baskets, pillows, yoga mats, towels, an upside down plastic storage bin, even a baking sheet or a drying rack. Something that’s going to add a really different and unique texture and sound and sensation to your little obstacle course that you’re building. So you’re going to collect all these things and in a hallway or your living room or bedroom or your backyard, wherever you have a little bit of space, you want to set up kind of a obstacle course for your dog. And if you’ve never done this before, your dog at first might be like, what the heck is going on? What does she want me to do with this? So encourage them by playing along with them, hide some treats, let them sniff the treats out, and encourage them to walk on all these different surfaces, maybe to burrow underneath of a blanket or some pillows.

Tori Mistick [00:13:02]:
Let them basically be a dog and do dog like activities. So digging, tunneling, climbing, let them go a little bit crazy. So this is not a calming activity, but it is going to fulfill your dog and release their stress and help lower their cortisol levels. But it is probably not going to help them be super, super calm afterward because they’re going to have a lot of fun doing this kind of activity. So that is our pop up adventure park tip on that is you want to make sure that it is different every single time. That you do it. So pull out different things again. You can go on Facebook Marketplace or ask your friends and family, hey, do you have any, like, old blankets or pillows that you’re not using that I could set up a dog obstacle course.

Tori Mistick [00:13:48]:
I’m sure people would be willing to lend you a few items for that you can incorporate sound and scent. Go back and listen to all the episodes so far in this limited series podcast and you’re gonna get a ton of ideas on how you could make this obstacle course or adventure park or whatever you want to call it, different and fresh every single time for your dog. Now, my third idea that I want to share with you, this episode is really about actionable ideas. And the third idea that I want to share with you is a seasonal snuffle box. So I love doing busy boxes and snuffle mats and Bert is such a scent driven dog. So I have this really fun idea for some seasonal snuffle boxes. You can gather a plastic bin or a cardboard box and then based on what season of the year it is, put in different corresponding elements from outdoors. For example, in the fall, you might want to gather some fallen leaves, make sure they’re clean and don’t have a lot of dog pee on them.

Tori Mistick [00:14:48]:
Some rocks or some sticks and you can put them in this box and just let your dog kind of snuffle and search and sniff around it. If you want to, you can hide some treats or some toys that they enjoy inside the box as well. In the winter, you might get a plastic bin and put some clean, fresh snow and let your dogs sniff around. I actually did that with my boyfriend’s cat last year. I let his cat sniff snow because I wasn’t sure if he really ever had before because he’s an indoor cat. Then in the springtime, you can gather some fresh herbs like basil, mint, parsley, rosemary. These are all safe herbs for your dog to sniff and you can put them in a box and let them sit sniff around there. And in the summer, maybe you want to get a big plastic bin, fill it with water and put some floating toys and let your dog either bob for the toys or jump in and play around with them.

Tori Mistick [00:15:36]:
So this is again, a really fun way to add novelty. Since it is seasonal, it’s going to be changing every single season and it’s keeping it really fresh and fun for your dog while tapping in to their natural instincts and what they love to do as a dog, which a lot of times is sniff and dig and burrow into things and discover new scents. And new things to do inside of boxes like this. Okay, so to recap this episode about environmental enrichment, we talked about embracing your dog’s surroundings. So environmental enrichment really just means the space that your dog occupies. So it’s your house, it’s when you go on walks, it’s at the park, it’s in your backyard, it’s the environment that your dog lives in. And so trying to give them opportunities to do dog things like climbing and sniffing and rolling and run and chasing and all of that kind of stuff in their environment. And then remember our tip from our buddy Eduardo that if it didn’t work, it wasn’t enriching.

Tori Mistick [00:16:34]:
So you always want to be mindful of, like, what is your goal of this enrichment activity? Does your dog need physical activity or do they need something that’s really calming? And then catering that activity to what your dog really needs so that we can see an improvement. We can either see that they got some physical exercise and they got some energy out or that they’re feeling calmer and more relaxed. So choose your activities based on what your dog actually needs, and that will help to make it even more enriching for them. We also looked at how more novelty equals better results. So the reason why in that study that we looked at from 2022, that the food toys were not as effective as the bacon scented bubbles and the playhouse was because the dogs were really used to doing the food toys. They had done them a million times. So while they are great, novelty is always going to be more interesting for your do. And then I gave you a couple of ideas from getting a playhouse and maybe sharing it with your dog mom friends, to building your own adventure park or obstacle course in your house and then doing those seasonal snuffle boxes.

Tori Mistick [00:17:38]:
Hopefully you got a lot of really great ideas from this episode. I hope that you will comment below. If you are on Spotify or YouTube, send me a DM on Instagramystic. I would love to hear if you’re gonna try any of these out yourself. And now that brings us to our listener question for today’s episode. So this question actually came from someone on YouTube and their username is Magpiempress. She said, I am getting a golden retriever in January and I love paddleboarding. Is it okay to train her on it as a puppy? We have a huge inside pool that I can train her in at first, but I’ve never had a water dog before.

Tori Mistick [00:18:19]:
Well, you’re in luck because I have pretty much exclusively had water dogs and I loved stand up Paddleboarding with my dog Lucy. We didn’t get into it until she was probably five or six years old. So I’m really excited that you have the opportunity to start as a puppy. So what I would recommend is starting on land first. The biggest thing with your puppy, especially a water dog like a retriever, is they’re going to love the water, so it’s going to be hard to get them to stay on the paddle board. So I would recommend that you start training that first so you can put your paddle board on land and train your dog to go on and jump off, train them to lay down or sit down and stay on the board. You can add different kind of distractions. Like when I was training Lucy to do this, I would go and do, like, jumping jacks and dance around and get treats out of my pocket and all kind of stuff.

Tori Mistick [00:19:08]:
And she had to stay on the paddle board on land while I was doing all this distracting stuff. Because when you’re out on the water, we would encounter, like, ducks and birds and kayakers and other people, all kind of distractions that made her want to jump off the board and go swimming in the water to go check everything out, which is fine sometimes, but I didn’t want to fall off of the paddle board that often myself. So I would start by training your puppy to stay on the paddle board on land. I would also recommend getting a life vest early. So getting your dog accustomed to wearing something like that, it might seem like no big deal to us to put that on, but you do want to train them and start small, getting them used to wearing something like that because it’s kind of bulky and it’s going to feel a little bit weird to them at first. So get a life jacket so they can get used to it. It’s also going to help you hoist them back up on the board. And plus, even though you know a retriever is a great swimmer, typically it’s just going to give you that extra level of safety to have a life jacket on your dog when you’re out doing paddle boarding.

Tori Mistick [00:20:10]:
And then finally, although your dog is probably going to love swimming, and you mentioned that you indoor pool, which is cool. Can you invite us over? I want to check out this huge indoor pool that you have. So it’s probably safe to let your dog swim in your own indoor pool as a puppy. But I would wait until they’re fully vaccinated, which is usually around four months, before you take them into any other shared bodies of water like a lake or a pond. Or the ocean or anything like that because there can be a lot of bacteria and you don’t want your dog to contract anything or get. Especially when they’re such a delicate little puppy. Remember, it’s like a newborn baby, basically. So always consult with your vet.

Tori Mistick [00:20:49]:
I think the pool would be safe, but you’re gonna wanna rinse them off afterwards so their skin doesn’t get irritated by the chlorine. And make sure there’s plenty of fresh water available for them to drink so that they don’t drink the pool water. And of course, it goes without saying, but supervise all the time. I’m really excited for you. Paddleboarding is actually a great example of environmental enrichment because it’s getting your like, into the water in a way that they probably would never have access to it before. It’s a very novel experience. Some dogs have never gone paddleboarding, so that’s really exciting. And it’s a great balance workout, so it’s great for dogs of all ages.

Tori Mistick [00:21:30]:
Lucy was paddle boarding with me until she was 12 or 13 years old and it’s just a great activity for dogs of all ages and it’s a wonderful way that you can bond and do something together with your dog. If you have a question that you would like me to answer on a future episode of Dog Enrichment with Tori mystic, you can go to toriknowsdogs.com podcast and at the bottom of that page there is a form to submit your question. So anything goes. I love answering your questions and you might hear a response to your question on future episode. All right, and then the final part of today’s episode is a product spotlight. So every week I like to recommend to you a couple of different products that you fit with that week’s theme of enrichment. So with Environmental Enrichment, the two products that I want to recommend to you and I’ll have links in the show description and also in the show notes@toriknowsdogs.com podcast. Today’s two products are an enrichment tunnel and a bubble machine.

Tori Mistick [00:22:27]:
Of course, I couldn’t resist sharing a bubble machine when I heard how effective it was in that 2022 study. The dogs responded so positively to it. So I will share links below to the actual agility tunnel that I use with Bert. He absolutely loves doing the tunnel. We got this a few years ago when we started doing Barn Hunt, which is a super fun scent based dog sport. If you haven’t heard about it. And when we got into Barn Hunt, one of the obstacles in that sport is they have to go through a tunnel. And Bert’s a big guy and the tunnel was kind of small and short, so he was pretty hesitant to do it.

Tori Mistick [00:23:06]:
So I got this agility tunnel so we could practice at home. And he just turned into a tunnel maniac. He’s a tunnel boy. He loves going back and forth through the tunnel. He gets so excited about it, even now at 13 and a half years old. And it’s a pretty long tunnel. It’s like 20ft long. I set this up in my backyard and it’s not set up all the time, so I only bring it out on occasion when we’re playing with it.

Tori Mistick [00:23:30]:
And so I think that really adds to the novelty and the enjoyment that he gets from this tunnel. You can collapse it to make it a shorter distance, you can bend it and twist it to have bent in it. It’s just a really fun activity that I think almost anyone can have space for. If you don’t have a yard, you could always take this to a park and do it there with your dog. But an agility tunnel is just a really fun confidence boosting activity. I’ll put links to my favorite one down below. You can find it on Amazon. And then I’m also going to share links to a affordable bubble machine that you can get.

Tori Mistick [00:24:04]:
I love this because again, it’s great for dogs of all ages, but also for people of all ages. Sometimes I get questions from people saying that they are not really physically capable of doing stuff with their dog because maybe they’re sick, they’re recovering from surgery, or because they’re elderly and their dog still wants to do a lot of wild and crazy things. So a bubble machine is a really fun way that people of all abilities and mobilities and dogs of all ages could benefit from. So I will link to a great one that I found that I don’t have yet, but that I want to order on Amazon again. You can go go to torinose dogs.com podcast and you can find links to all the products that I recommended on this episode and every episode of this limited series podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode about environmental enrichment. If you haven’t yet, go listen to episodes one through six to learn more about ways that you can enrich your dog’s life and your own and strengthen the bond that you share with one another. In next week’s episode, episode eight, we are going to talk about social enrichment.

Tori Mistick [00:25:13]:
So I will probably be bringing back this 2022 study that we heard about today about how beneficial playing with other dogs was to the dogs in the study’s stress levels. It really did improve their mood and also their physiology. So I’m excited to get more into that and share with you some ways that you can do social enrichment that don’t involve playing with other dogs as well. So tune in for that. Until then, you can find me on Instagram mystic and you can find all the show notes and citations of all the studies referenced in this show on my website, Wear Wag Repeat. An easy way to find that is going to torinose dogs.com podcast. Thanks for listening.