HOW WE DEFINE ENRICHMENT

How Enrichment Saves Lives

Animal advocates have been interested in providing enrichment to the animals in their care for many, many decades. Zoos and Aquariums have been using the term “enrichment” for many years in an attempt to describe the things they do, provide, add, and enhance, to captive living conditions of wild animals. Fundamentally, the purpose of providing enrichment is to achieve the first step in the humane treatment of all animals living in captivity in conditions that impose restrictions for them to behave in a way that is normal, wild, and natural.

While the term enrichment has existed in use to describe “higher-level care” offered to animals in Zoos and Aquariums, it has only gained popularity in the dog world in the last three years.

Domestication of animals (and plants) has served humans in more ways than we can clearly describe. Is this relationship mutually beneficial? How do we know with certainty?

We were the first to recognize that dogs too, need enrichment. We searched worldwide for a working model of canine enrichment to no avail, which led to the birth of Doglando – A Canine Enrichment Center and Working Laboratory For Dog Care Professionals.

Doglando was founded on the principles of honoring domestic, companion dogs (also known as domesticated restricted pet dogs) in some of the same ways people respect street dogs.

“The process of domestication modifies a species genetically through selective breeding and ultimately allows humans to have control over an animal’s behavior”.

At Doglando, our goal from Day One, has been to give our companion dogs access to the types of freedoms they would have without our:

1. poor judgement, and
2. control over them.

Over the last nearly two decades, the creation of the concept “Canine Enrichment” has evolved into a framework that can be easily implemented by anyone, and its results are clearly observable and measurable, lessening ambiguity amongst providers, caregivers, curators, and trainers.

The impact enrichment has had on the learner, in our case the domesticated restricted companion dog, has been life-saving. Despite many attempts of behavior modification and training, our dog parents have experienced much relief and freedom for themselves as well, because of our whole dog approach, Doglando’s Canine Enrichment program offers.

Enrichment is not something you do for the dog. It’s an opportunity you create by giving your dog access to an environment that is carefully, thoughtfully, and strategically created to allow a dog to behave in the most species-normal way.

As a result, our Enrichment program has saved the lives of countless dogs by:

• better understanding them
• providing conditions that are conducive to their well-being
• giving dogs an alternative to a restrictive, sedentary lifestyle

More than “ditching the bowl” and offering dogs a fun and more stimulating way to feed, our Whole Dog Approach functions in three essential ways:

1. Training: Teaches key behavioral responses to specific signals; develops Skills.
2. Canine Skill Building: Generalizes skills to different scenarios and conditions, for mastery and fluency.
3. Enrichment: Where Training and Skill Building come together and where total wellness is achieved using the 8 Spheres of Enrichment framework.