Creative Ways to Improve Your Dog's Nutrition + Enjoyment of Eating
- Sara-Jane and Steve Gage
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
As our dog's guardians, it is our responsibility to offer novelty and fun to enhance their life experience. One of the easiest ways to do this and to enrich feeding times is by diversifying your delivery of their food. Training sessions, snuffle mats, scatter feeds, Kongs, Pupsicles, and puzzles are just some of the many ways we can diversify how we provide quality nutrition to our dogs. Here are some of our favorite ways to feed our Engaged Dogs:
1) Training Sessions- Capturing good behaviors:
'Work smarter and not harder' by capturing good behaviors throughout your day with your dog. Anytime your dog offers a preferred behavior, it is an opportunity to Mark and Reward that behavior, thereby communicating clearly and with lots of repetition (to increase their reliability in performing preferred behaviors,) "Hey I like what you just did there! Keep doing that!" Your dog is walking nearby you and maintaining a loose leash? "Yes! Good Fido!" deliver a piece of kibble/ food.
Your dog offers a visual check in (looks to you,) while walking or from across the park? "Yes!! Good Check in Fido!! Good dog!"
Your dog starts to jump on you in excitement as you arrive home (and you'd prefer they don't jump) and you notice them restrain themselves? "Yes!! Good '4 on the floor' Fido!! Good choice!"
Preferred behaviors can (and should) be captured often and easily, thereby making training easier and communicating more clearly and more often to your dog what your preferences are and what gets them paid.
Specific Skill Building Training Session:
Once our dog has learned a foundation of a skill ("Sit"= put your butt on the floor until further notice, for example,) we then must work to Proof their skill in order for them to be able to be reliable in their behaviors. Proofing can (and should) be done often to help your dog generalize and be more consistent. (Learn more about proofing here: Proofing: What it is + why it's a crucial component in your pups' training ) Depending on your dog's current level of learning and experience, choose 1-3 cues to work on and an appropriate environment that will set them up for success.
When teaching new skills, choose familiar, low distraction environments. As they progress, slowly increase challenge by choosing different environments with more stimulation. Our goal is always to set our dogs up for success, so aim to start in an environment and working on cues that you are confident you can get a few successful repetitions of in order to build confidence and momentum in your work together.
Example: While it would be appropriate for Penny Grace to work on proofing her skills in a busy airport, this likely would not be appropriate for most dogs. This is due to past training and exposure. Always aim to set the dog in front of you up for success in the present moment.
Example of a Specific Skill training session with Penny Grace:
Penny and I work on these behaviors a lot at present, so you'll notice us flowing between her offering behaviors and me capturing them, versus cuing specific behavior sequences. Notice how we are shaping the backpack behavior- I began marking and rewarding anything close to the preferred behavior and used each rep to move more towards the end preferred behavior of being able to lay on it while I adjust things and get her strapped in and situated.
2) Pupsicles
Pupsicles are an excellent, easy, cheap way to get diverse nutrients in our dogs while also offering a chewing and/or licking opportunity.
Some pupsicle variations we love:
Pupsicle/ Kong/ Treat Dispensing toy
We love sticking entire hard or soft boiled eggs into the traditional Pupsicle or Kong type toys.
Some of our other favorite nutrient dense food options to put in a treat dispensing toy include: Eggs
Sardines (canned in water) Salmon (cooked, canned, in water)
Open Farm Meal Mixers
Ziwi (canned wet food)
Pumpkin (canned 100% pure pumpkin) Fish oil
These treat dispensing type toys can be frozen to last longer or prepared as needed. We recommend trying both and noticing which your dog seems to prefer. Vegetable Pupsicles:
Like with all things, you will want to try several variations to determine your pup's preference. Here are some of our favorites: Carrots (both baby and full sized carrots, cut in half or quartered) Zucchini Cucumber
Broccoli Florets
Sweet Potato Wedges
Choose the vegetable(s) of your choice. Soak in baking soda OR vinegar for 2 minutes to wash and remove some of the pesticides. Boil dog safe bone broth (We love Honest Kitchens': THE HONEST KITCHEN Human
Put your selected vegetables in the boiling dog safe bone broth for 3-5 minutes.
Poke holes in the vegetables to help them absorb some of the broth and flavor.
Remove from heat. Put the vegetables in the freezer. Utilize the remaining bone broth in ice cube trays of your choosing for easy frozen snacks that will supplement your dog's nutrition and hydration. If your dog is not a fan of ice cubes or plain bone broth, add in other bits that they may enjoy. We love sprinkling Open Farm Meal Mixers on top. We also use the 'dust' leftover from some of our favorite treats (like Stewart's Beef Liver or Open Farm Good Bowl Salmon Meal Mixers) on top to entice our dogs. Here are some more pupsicle options you can try for your Engaged Dog: FAST FOOD- Pupsicles!
Keep in mind that new foods should be approx. 5-10% of your dog's daily intake to decrease the likelihood of upsetting their digestive system.
3) Lickimats
Licking is a naturally soothing activity for our dogs. Using lickimats allows our dogs to slow down, enjoying the soothing licking action, and enjoy a yummy treat too.
Lickimats can be prepped as needed or pre prepared and frozen. Our favorite Lickimats toppers are: Eggs (boiled or scrambled and smashed into the grooves of a lickimat) Sardines (canned in water)
Tuna (canned, in water) Pumpkin Wet food (we like Ziwi)
Soaked kibble (soak your dog's kibble in bone broth, water, or coconut water for 20ish minutes to let it get soft and spreadable on the lickimat)
Lickimats can be used for meal times, enrichment, or to help in challenging activities like bathtimes, grooming, vet care and more.
4) Snuffle Mats, Scatter Feeds (The Go Find Game,) Puzzles
Our dogs are natural born foragers, forced to live in unnatural environments alongside us. This is (in part) why it's so important to diversify feeding and to choose ways to replicate their natural behaviors. Sniffing, orienting to "prey," rooting around/ capturing, and desiccating "prey" are not only enriching to your dog, but satiate some of their naturally occurring prey drive. When we work to proactively satiate their prey drive, this improves quality of life, mental health, impulse control, and their ability to be more neutral around prey irl.
Snuffle Mats: Snuffle mats can be found in most pet stores and give our dogs the opportunity to sniff and root around for their food. By slowing down their eating and increasing sniffing, we offer an opportunity to help them regulate their nervous systems and improve their digestion.
Here's a snuffle mat we love: HOMAGICO Snuffle Mat Interactive Puzzle Dog, Cat & Rabbit Toy, Large: 32x20-in, Blue - Chewy.com
Scatter Feeds/ The Go Find Game:
Similarly to snuffle mats, you can also sprinkle or scatter your dogs food into grass or low lying bushes to encourage snuffling behaviors. The Go Find Game has LOTS of variations. Read more about it here:
Puzzles: There are infinite options of puzzles you can purchase or create for your dog, and while we personally use a bit of all of them, Penny Grace's favorite puzzle activity is when I use hollowed our toys that she has removed the stuffing and squeakers from. I use the toy carcasses to put kibble, blueberries, and treats in, layer them within each other, sometimes putting them inside of paper bags, boxes, and egg cartons, and then I hide the puzzles are the apartment while she proofs her Place cue. Once I release her to "Be Free" she searches for the various puzzles, "captures" them, and eats their insides. This allows her to burn some energy while eating and sufficiently satisfies her prey drive so that she is able and willing to ignore prey outside when needed. We do puzzles every single day, often multiple times a day, as this appears to be her favorite enrichment activity and she frequently "asks" to do them.
There is no limit to how we can feed our dogs and the ways in which we can enrich their lives. We strongly recommend considering the unique dog in front of you and offering enrichment which they enjoy and support their breed specific needs.
Not sure what your dog's genetic makeup says about their behavior and needs? We HIGHLY recommend reading Meet Your Dog: the Game-Changing Guide to Understanding Your Dog's Behavior by Kim Brophey Kim Brophy also did an excellent Ted Talk discussing her book briefly: https://youtu.be/46ND3suK1y8?si=qq_0328sbHXI-baP
What's your dog's favorite way to eat? Learn more about the Treating Trail Mix we use and Canine Nutrition: Treating Trail Mix Recipe
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