At-Home Pet Enrichment Ideas for Dogs & Cats
While your pets may look cute laying around, they do still need some good enrichment time to keep their bodies and brains engaged and active. There are a lot of ways to accomplish this, and they likely can be done with items you already own. Let's take a look at some of the best at-home activities to keep your pets happy and healthy.
As a pet owner, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, causing you to forget to set up some quality time for your four-legged friends. It’s important to have mental and physical exercises at home for your pets, so they can keep themselves in top shape. While they enjoy lounging on that comfy bed all day, they also need some quality enrichment time. Let’s take a look at some easy-to-setup enrichment ideas for your dogs and cats, that you likely can set up within your own home with things you already own!
Enrichment Ideas For Dogs
Scent Games
Take your dog’s favorite toys and hide them throughout your house or backyard. This will engage their natural instinct and ability to sniff out what they’re looking for. You can also reward them with a treat when they find one of the toys as a way to keep them going.
DIY Puzzle Treat Toys
While you can buy specially-made toys that are made with a hole/opening for an enrichment toy, you can make your own at home with a tennis ball! Just cut a hole to open up a tennis ball and fill it with your dog’s favorite treats and a little peanut butter. This will activate those problem solving skills that dogs have while they work towards getting their tasty treats out.
Slow Feeders
Slow feeders are a similar concept to the puzzle games mentioned above. Putting your dog’s food into a slow feeder creates a sort of mental obstacle course for your dogs to navigate in order to get to their food. It also aids in slowing down consumption and digestion, making it so your dogs don’t scarf down their entire bowl within a few seconds.
At-Home Obstacle Courses
As we all know, dogs tend to love to run around and have a blast bouncing off the walls. With an obstacle course, you can let them do that and it’ll make for a good enrichment activity! Setting one up in your backyard can be easily done as well. Spread out some chairs, boxes or old tires for them to jump off of and run through. You can also take some blankets and spread them out over a chair to make a DIY tunnel that they’ll run through over and over again.
Enrichment Ideas for Cats
Scavenger Hunts
A cat’s natural instinct is to hunt for their prey. You can let them flex those hunting muscles by hiding treats or toys around your home and allowing them to search and pounce once they find them. If you really want to get them going on a hunt, you can also use a laser toy and get them chasing the dot all over the place. Scavenger hunts are perfect for engaging your cat’s brain muscles and they get some good active movement as well.
Feather Toys
Much like a laser toy, feather toys activate a cat’s natural instinct to hunt. Wiggle the feather and move it around to mimic the movement that prey would make when they are near a cat. This is another mentally-engaging activity that can be fun for both you and your cats to take part in.
Cardboard Boxes
You probably have a bunch of delivery boxes stacked up ready to be taken out to the recycling bin. Your cats would love to be able to explore those and rub their scent all over them! Scatter the opened boxes throughout a room and let them have at it. They’ll be laying down and spending some good time in those boxes before you know it.
Scratching Posts/Cat Trees
Cats love to scratch and rub their paws on rough surfaces. A scratching post allows them to have that good enrichment time with something that’s directly made for their little claws. They also love to perch up high and get a good view of things from high above. A lot of modern cat trees come with a built-in scratching post, so if you want the best of both worlds, you can provide them with two enrichment activities with one thing!
General Enrichment Ideas for Dogs & Cats
Rotate Toys
Pets tend to focus on a few of their favorite toys, while others get neglected after a while. Rotating some old ones in to replace the newer ones helps them get excited to play with some different toys and work differently when they play.
One on One Play Time
Pets love having your undivided attention and giving it to them is a great way to keep up with positive reinforcement. Taking at least 15 minutes to play with them without any distractions like a phone or TV will help keep them engaged mentally. It can even be a little workout that can benefit both you and your pet!
Allow Window or Outdoors Time
Letting your pets enjoy being out in the sun, exploring all the different sights and smells will have them active for a long time. If you aren’t able to have them be outside for an extended period of time, even just having a window for them to look out of will allow them to keep their brain engaged while they focus on different critters or birds that stop by.
There are many benefits to allowing your pets quality enrichment time. Utilizing these at-home enrichment activities can benefit your dogs or cats daily as they continue to stay in the best shape both physically and mentally. You can pick up different cat and dog toys, treats, and supplies online at FleetFarm.com or a Fleet Farm store near you.
