Why Activities and Enrichment Are so Important to the Daycare Experience!
It’s no surprise that the Oodles daycare day revolves around numerous activities and enrichment for our daycare visitors…so, what is enrichment and why is it that we choose to incorporate such so extensively into our program?
What is enrichment?
Enrichment is an activity given to a dog offering them the ability to work either their mind, or their bodies to complete a particular task, or achieve a desired result. It’s the canine equivalent to Sudoku puzzles, baking cupcakes, or reading a book. Enrichment ignites a dog’s canine senses, offering them a new experience to provide an alternative to the mundanity of a boring daily routine. Enrichment activities can be offered to dogs in five different ways; occupational, physical, sensory, nutritional and social.
While occupational enrichment may include playing fetch, sensory enrichment may include sniffing lavender or basil.
Why is it beneficial?
Enrichment is used with dogs as a way to relieve boredom, decrease stress, and help them gain control over their environment so they feel comfortable, confident, and engaged.
Enrichment offers dogs the opportunity to use their brains, and their bodies to maximise stimulation in a positive and valuable way. It can help distract anxious and destructive dogs from their negative behaviours, by providing them with a constructive and satisfying alternative energy focus.
For dogs lacking in behavioural issues, enrichment activities work to enhance their mental and physical capacity and provide them with the stimulation required to be their happiest and most confident selves. Just like us, dogs reap confidence and satisfaction through task completion.
Enrichment helps dogs live their very best lives and helps to break up their day by offering new and exciting experiences.
Why do we use enrichment activities in daycare?
Most doggy daycares will leave dogs to entertain themselves, without providing them with an environment that is based purely on supervision. This can however be problematic for the following reasons:
- Dogs become bored and spend their day at daycare sleeping
- Dogs respond to the daycare environment by going into sensory overload and start becoming destructive either to staff, to other dogs, to objects or to themselves
- Shy and anxious dogs remain so throughout their entire daycare experience as they have no chance to build their confidence, or interact with other dogs on a smaller scale
At Oodles, our mission is to provide a fun environment for all of our pups that doesn’t involve dogs responding in any of the above ways.
By implementing enrichment activities into our program, we find that anxious dogs come out of their shells, over-stimulated or otherwise destructive dogs calm down and focus on something a positive, and dogs who would otherwise be bored, or may need more stimulation than just playing with other dogs, are engaged and able to use their minds and bodies to have a fun and fulfilling day at daycare.
Enrichment at daycare greatly decreases the chances of dog fights, as dogs are focussing on achieving an outcome, instead of on another dog or their behaviour. By using their minds and bodies throughout our activities, our pups also go home tired (in a good way) and show less signs of destructive or anxious behaviours in the home.
From inception, enrichment has been an integral part of the Oodles daycare experience, and will continue to be our most valued part of our program due to the highly positive outcomes it provides, to our pups both during their day at daycare, and in the home. Our enrichment activities not only enhance a dog’s day at daycare. They work to build confidence to enhance a dog’s life so that they too can be their very best versions of themselves.
