Keeping Your Dog Enrichment Program Fresh
Your business thrives on enrichment activities, but how do you keep your dog enrichment program fresh? Do you feel like your activities are becoming routine? Do your staff and even the dogs seem a little bored with the same old routine?
The great news is that it’s easy to refresh your enrichment activities and even better news is you can have your team help. Find some time to get your team together and use our tips to generate a long list of new enrichment activity ideas.
We recently had Jamie Popper from Blue-9 Pet Products join us for a discussion on canine fitness and enrichment. Jamie is a great dog trainer, super creative and shared the following tips for keeping your activities fresh.
- Create a poster board for each type of enrichment activity in your program (e.g., scent, equipment, games, fitness, etc.). Challenge each staff member to come up with one new activity for each board.
- Put team members in pairs and have them brainstorm new activities on slips of paper. Put all the ideas you want to try in a fun dog bowl and draw from the bowl each day for a fun new activity to try.
- Use the 3 D’s to refresh activities you are already using. Distance, duration and distraction each be used to make an exercise more challenging for a dog that has mastered the basics.
Be sure to watch our video discussion with Jamie for more details behind these ideas and for a demo with Roo on the propel air platform. She also explains the tips on introducing new dogs to the platform and how to ensure your exercises stay safe. He may be retired, but Roo still loves to work which is an inspiration to include senior pets in enrichment activities in your pet business.
