Dog Enrichment Games to Try with Your Pup

Enrichment activities are simply recreational games or challenges that help stimulate your dog’s mind and body.

While providing enrichment for your dog may just feel like fun play time, regularly engaging your pup in these types of activities is essential to their overall health and wellbeing. Benefits of canine enrichment include:

Thankfully, there are many different options for providing enrichment for your dog and they can be as simple or extravagant as you would like!

Hiking with your dog can be great for the physical and mental health of both you and your dog. Your pup can experience a wide range of different scents, sights, and sounds while exploring a new environment.

Whether you live in an area with forest, hills, ocean, or even in a city, there are wonderful walks that will provide exercise, enrichment, and bonding for you and your furry sidekick. Check out our full resource page on hiking with dogs.

Some dogs will accel in agility. There are certain breeds, including border collies, German shepherds, Jack Russell terriers, and Aussies, that instinctually run, jump, and climb. Providing them with an engaging outlet for their energy in the form of an agility course not only keeps them active but exercises their brain.

You can look up local agility groups to join or even DIY your own agility course in your yard. You can use inexpensive items to build a dog agility course, such as hula-hoops, cinderblocks and plywood, pop-up play runs, and PVC piping. Just make sure that any equipment you use does not have any sharp edges and is built sturdy enough to hold the weight and impact of your dog so as not to cause any injuries.

Not only do agility courses keep your dog active, the act of training your dog to use an agility course stimulates their brain and provides a great bonding opportunity for you both.

Food maze dog bowls can be found at your local pet store, online, and even at some veterinary clinics. These toys make eating their breakfast or dinner a fun game for dogs as they must work harder and use their brains to gobble up their food. These maze bowls are especially good for dogs that are fast eaters as they prevent them from simply engulfing their food.

Please keep in mind that food mazes are not suited for all dogs. It is not advised to use maze bowls for dogs that have been rescued from neglectful, restrictive, or abusive environments as making these pups work or “earn” their meals can trigger past traumatic experiences. If you are unsure about whether a maze bowl would be appropriate for your dog, you can always ask your veterinarian for advice.

They say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” but with enough patience and plenty of treats you can train a dog of any age. Whether your canine companion is a puppy or several years old, there are always new ticks to teach them. If your dog tends to be mischievous, they are typically acting out due to high intelligence and lack of mental stimulation; training them to do fun tricks is a great outlet.

It is typically recommended that you spend no more than 15 minutes on one training session, which is perfect for busy families. In this session, it is important to put all your focus on your dog; if you seem distracted, your pup will lose attention too.

While training your dog, try to use small, low calorie treats or break your dog’s treats into small pieces as you will likely need a lot of treats for each training session.

Start simple with a “high five” or “shake” then move onto more complex dog tricks like “rollover” and “sing.” We advise searching for training guides produced by certified dog trainers as some videos shared on popular social media platforms use techniques that could potentially bring mental or physical harm to your dog.

Training your dog to follow a scent can be very stimulating and rewarding for both you and your pup. Scent games are especially enriching for dogs with an instinct to hunt or forage, including hounds, retrievers, terriers, and poodles.

Simply give your dog the scent of a treat then, when they are not looking, hide it somewhere nearby for them to sniff out and find. Start with hiding spots nearby and easy to reach, such as under a blanket next to them or placed a few feet away. Increasingly make the hiding spots more difficult to find. There are even scent training kits for dogs that do not require the use of treats for dogs that are more advanced at sniffing out their target.

If your pup has a short attention span, scent training may take some extra time and effort, but can turn into a wonderful, easy, and enriching game once they understand the task at hand!

A great DIY dog enrichment game is to create a make-shift treasure hunt, stimulating and a new way to play. This is especially great for dogs that like to dig or scavenge. Simply use a large cardboard box and fill it with crumpled paper. Bury your dog’s favorite toys or a few treats inside the box and have your pup search for them all. If you have a backyard and don’t mind the potential mess, you also can fill a kids play pool with sand then bury balls or non-fabric toys for your dog to dig out.

Just make sure that anything you use to create your dog’s treasure hunt is non-toxic, pends no chocking risk, and doesn’t have any sharp edges. Keep an eye on your pup to ensure they don’t ingest anything other than their hidden dog treats!

It comes as no surprise that most dogs love food so building enrichment activities around treats can be very effective for some dogs.

A simple fun game/enrichment treat is peanut butter or cheese whip in a Kong® toy. Try freezing the toy with its contents first to extend the time your dog must spend getting the treat. For dogs on a weight-management plan, soak some of their kibble in water or use wet dog food to fill the treat toy instead of using the typical high calorie fillings.

Keep in mind that like us humans, different dogs will engage more strongly with different types of activities. It may take some trial and error to find games that captivate your pup’s attention. Try an activity at least 2 or 3 times before ruling it out, but make sure to never push a game on your dog that seems to be making them uncomfortable – it’s not enriching their life if it’s causing them distress!