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A review by brooke_review
Happy Dog: 101 Easy Enrichment Activities for a Healthy, Happy, Well-Behaved Pup by Chelsea Barstow
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
5.0
As the proud fur-mama of two very smart and lovable Miniature Schnauzers, I am always looking for new ways to keep them enriched and entertained. Due to the ever-increasing prevalence of loose and stray dogs in our community, I have been finding it more and more difficult to enrich my dogs’ lives in the “typical” ways - walks, visits to the park, sniffaris around the neighborhood, etc.
I have several safe enrichment activities in my repertoire, but I am always looking for more, which is why I was thrilled to discover former zookeeper and animal enrichment expert Chelsea Barstow’s Happy Dog: 101 Enrichment Activities for a Healthy, Happy, Well-Behaved Pup. While many of the activities that I currently use with my dogs are included in this book, Chelsea has so many more that I never even considered.
Divided into six types of enrichment - environmental, food, sensory, cognitive, social, and miscellaneous - Happy Dog is chock full of easy enrichment activities designed to make your dogs life more fulfilling. Each enrichment activity is presented with a brief overview, and then explains how to do it and how it helps. Some of these activities are as simple as letting your pup eat their meal in a new location, such as the backyard, while others are more labor intensive, such as creating a cardboard food puzzle for your dog made from packaging scraps. While some involve traveling, such as going to the beach or going on a hike, others can be done without ever leaving your home - for example, setting up a mirror so that your dog can observe its reflection or letting your dog engage in scatter feeding.
I found this book to be packed with incredibly useful and insightful information about how our dogs perceive the world and the ways that we can make their lives more enriching. I borrowed this book from my local library, but I am considering purchasing my own copy so that I can always have it on hand when I need a new activity for my pups (and that is saying a lot because even though I am a librarian, I am not a collector of books!)
Highly recommended for all dog lovers looking to make their furbabies’ lives a little brighter.
I have several safe enrichment activities in my repertoire, but I am always looking for more, which is why I was thrilled to discover former zookeeper and animal enrichment expert Chelsea Barstow’s Happy Dog: 101 Enrichment Activities for a Healthy, Happy, Well-Behaved Pup. While many of the activities that I currently use with my dogs are included in this book, Chelsea has so many more that I never even considered.
Divided into six types of enrichment - environmental, food, sensory, cognitive, social, and miscellaneous - Happy Dog is chock full of easy enrichment activities designed to make your dogs life more fulfilling. Each enrichment activity is presented with a brief overview, and then explains how to do it and how it helps. Some of these activities are as simple as letting your pup eat their meal in a new location, such as the backyard, while others are more labor intensive, such as creating a cardboard food puzzle for your dog made from packaging scraps. While some involve traveling, such as going to the beach or going on a hike, others can be done without ever leaving your home - for example, setting up a mirror so that your dog can observe its reflection or letting your dog engage in scatter feeding.
I found this book to be packed with incredibly useful and insightful information about how our dogs perceive the world and the ways that we can make their lives more enriching. I borrowed this book from my local library, but I am considering purchasing my own copy so that I can always have it on hand when I need a new activity for my pups (and that is saying a lot because even though I am a librarian, I am not a collector of books!)
Highly recommended for all dog lovers looking to make their furbabies’ lives a little brighter.