Is feeding your dog just another random chore in your day? Dogs need to eat, but that doesn’t mean that mealtime has to be boring! Mainly if your dog eats the same thing morning and night, day in and day out, you might want to consider changing up the way you feed your dog to make mealtime a fun activity for your fur baby.
Why make meals fun:
Most dogs love food, but that doesn’t mean mealtime is always a fun part of their day. Instead of just putting your dog’s fool in a bowl, you can use mealtime to provide fun, engagement, and entertainment into your dog’s day. A significant benefit of making mealtime more fun is that dogs with enough mental stimulation are less likely to be bored. Boredom can lead to various destructive behaviors with dogs, including destructive chewing, digging, and excessive barking. Enrichment can also support and soothe dogs who are feeling stressed, which can help improve their overall quality of life.
Food options for enrichment
An increasing array of options for feeding your dog, from dry to wet food to pre-prepared fresh cooked meals, raw food, and frozen fresh. Regardless of what type of food you provide, there are ways that you can make mealtime more fun for your dog. UnKibble is the most accessible food in a wide variety of fun meal options; however, with creativity, any type of food can be turned into an enrichment game.
Training treats
If you’re feeding UnKibble, because it is high-value, you can take some or all of your dog’s meal and put it into a treat pouch to reward behaviors during the day and to use during structured training times. This is a great way to make mealtime more interesting than just putting food into a bowl. It also is a strategy for ensuring you aren’t giving your dog too many calories with training treats which could impact their diet and lead to unintentional weight gain or upset your dog’s stomach.
Before traveling anywhere together, make sure that your dog is wearing a properly fitted collar with an identification tag with updated information for how to reach you. Your dog should also be microchipped before traveling as an extra protection in case you become separated.
Puzzle toys
If you’re feeding dry food, you can easily use different puzzle toys or treat releasing balls to provide your dog with their meals. These puzzle toys are a great way to turn mealtime into a game for your dog to foster independent play. Puzzle toys slow your dog down while they are eating, which is great for digestion, and provide your dog with activities and engagement, which can help to prevent boredom and alleviate stress. These toys challenge your dog’s mind and help mealtime to be more exciting for your dog.
Slow feeders
Slow-feeder bowls can be used with any type of food, from fresh diets, raw food, and home-cooked meals, as well as canned wet food and kibble. Slow-feed bowls come in ceramic and plastic options with different designs and patterns of raised ridges on the bottom of the bowl. As you prepare your dog’s meal, the food goes into the different compartments of the bowl. Then, when you feed your dog, the ridges inside will slow your dog down while they eat. This can help digestion and make mealtime more challenging and fun for your dog.
Lick mats
Like slow feeder bowls, lick mats are plastic or silicone mats that have different shaped ridges, pockets, and areas. Lick mats are ideal for making mealtime more fun if you feed your home-cooked, freshly prepared, or other moist diets to your dog. You can spread some or all their meal onto the lick mats and then feed or freeze to make the lick mat an even more significant challenge for your dog to get their food out of. Licking is a naturally soothing behavior for dogs, and lick mats encourage dogs to slow down while they are eating, which aids in healthy digestion.
Toppl/Kong
Perfect for any kind of meal from kibble to fresh cooked to raw, another option for providing your dog with mealtime enrichment is to feed some or all your dog’s smell in a hollow toy like a Kong or Toppl. These hard rubber or silicone dog toys are designed to be stuffed with food or treats. Once filled, you can give them to your dog to chew and lick to access their food through the hole in the bottom. These toys provide dogs with an engaging enrichment puzzle while they work on getting their food and encourage slow eating. These stuffed toys can help occupy dogs for more extended periods so are perfect if you want your dog to be entertained while you can’t pay attention to them. For an added challenge, you can fill the toy with your dog’s meal and then freeze it before giving it to your dog.
Supervision
If you’re adding enrichment activities to your dog’s mealtime routines, it’s important to start by supervising your dog while they are eating. Although most dogs take to different mealtime enrichment immediately, some will become stressed or frustrated with figuring out how to access their meal. If your dog is stressed at any time while eating out of a puzzle or other toy, help your dog to access their food by making the puzzle more accessible, or feeding a meal in the bowl they are used to. Then, try introducing a more accessible enrichment or puzzle toy at a future meal to build up your dog’s understanding.
