Enrichment - Bring the world into your pet's living room!

Our pets live in the land of plenty! The next meal is delivered punctually into the bowl, the territory is secured, they are taken for a walk around the block twice a day and in the evening they get their cuddles on the couch. The perfect life – or maybe the perfect boredom?

No matter if zoo animals or pets, we determine their entire life: Where they live, with whom they have contact, when and what they eat, with whom they reproduce, in dogs even when they are allowed to eliminate.

How can we enrich life for our pets?

Taking a look intothe keeping of zoo animals is well worthwhile here. Animal keepers are the true experts when it comes to making the lives of the animals in their care as liveable as possible.

Opinions tend to differ sharply about whether it makes sense to keep wild animals in zoos. But one thing is clear: The keeping of wild animals in captivity according to the standards of animal wellfare is much more demanding than the keeping of our domesticated pets. In case of prolonged boredom or stress, wild animals are prone to develop stereotypes. Although it seems that our pets cope better with the fact their whole lives are determined by us humans, this doesn’t mean that taking an effort to improve their quality of life is not wothwhile.

As part of my Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs exchange program with Lothlorien Dog Services in Scotland, I was given the opportunity to spend three days with the wolf pack at the Highland Wildlife Park in Kincraig, assisting the team of keepers in their daily work routine and giving feedback on their training with the wolves. A highlight, both for me and for the wolves, was the weekly Enrichment Day.

What is Enrichment?

The idea of Enrichment comes from zoo animal husbandry and describes a concept to avoid the development of stereotypes through boredom and to give the animals the opportunity to use body and mind according to their genetic make-up (Source: Wikipedia)

Enrichment is a holistic concept, which aims to give the animal the opportunity to make self-determined decisions and to experience self-efficacy. The animal is not helplessly exposed to its environment, but has control over what happens.

Enrichment consists of five equally important categories:

1. Food Enrichment – simple and effective, because every animal has to eat!

Instead of inhaling their food from the bowl within 30 seconds, the wolves have to spend quite a while looking for and accessing food.Therefore, the food is hidden and scattered in the enclosure, packed into cardboard boxes, or frozen in blocks of ice.

What do your pet’s wild relatives have to do to get their food? Climb trees? Dig holes? Stretch their neck to reach the highest trees? Chase prey?

Of course, you can not serve live animals to your dog and cat. Also in zoos it is forbidden for animal protection reasons to feed living prey animals to the predators. But you can simulate the sequences of the predatory drift by, for example, rolling, throwing, scattering or dragging treats. Play the 10 Treats Game or the Stalking Game with your dog or cat to meet his predatory needs.

Cats love to use their paws. Let your cat fumble her dry food from an egg carton or a cat activity board.

Scatter yourdog’s kibble on a snuffle mat and put his canned food into a Kong or on a licki mat. There are plenty of ideas and recipes on the Internet.

Even for small animals, horses, fish and birds, there are ideas on the Internet about how they can work out their food.

2. Sensory Enrichment – sight, sound, touch, smell and taste

Wolves are very curious animals who love to explore new things by chewing on them, sniffing and destroying them. Every new smell or taste on the tongue fuels the synapses in the brain. The team therefore collects boxes containing remains of yoghurt, jam, butter, honey or sauces. They enrich the enclosure with raspberry twigs, from which the wolves pick the berries, scatter strawberries on the ground, or give the wolves ice blocks in which different vegetables and fruits are frozen in a light gravy.

Whole cabbages or cardboard boxes are given to the wolves to shred and scatter throughout the enclosure.

The team spikes the bark of the trees with herbs, such as catnip or clove and sprays perfume on the edge of the enclosure, to animate the wolves to sniff and scent mark. One of the keepers told me that Jax, the breeding male’s favourite is Chanel No. 5.

In one area of the enclosure, the team put an old picknick table from the park’s playground. How many sandwiches might the wolves be able to sniff on it?