Enrichment activities enhance the quality of your dog’s life. Mental and physical stimulation that comes with activity helps reduce undesirable behaviors while simultaneously building desirable behaviors. At Summit Kennels, enrichment adds variety to each dog’s day and increases the diversity of positive behaviors to prevent the undesirable behaviors commonly seen with bored dogs such as barking and whining, digging, pacing, self-chewing and licking, etc.

The five types of enrichment are provided to the boarding dogs at Summit Kennels:

German Shepherd Dog in a kennel laying on a raised bed chewing on a toy. The door leading to the outside run is behind the dog and it is open.

Physical Enrichment affects the quality of life in the dog’s enclosure. This includes things like toys, beds, and access to outdoors. The purpose of physical enrichment is to make life interesting and comfortable inside the kennel run. Toys are rotated and varied according to the dog’s interests. Every dog gets a raised bed and dogs have free access to their own outdoor runs.

Close up photo of a dog sniffing with its nose deep in ivy leaves.

Sensory Enrichment involves the dog’s senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Music selected for the dogs at times during the day serves to calm anxious dogs and to buffer noise from activities in the feed room or outside the kennel. Diverse sensory enrichment is provided on walks where there are many trees, bushes, tall grasses, and other areas to sniff and investigate.

A collage of various food enrichment: food-stuffed toys, dog using a snuffle mat, dog shredding paper to get to food inside, illustrative photos of how to make a paper food puzzle.

Nutritional Enrichment is all about food. Food doesn’t just have to be fed in a bowl. There are a countless number of ways that dogs can get their food. Food can be stuffed into toys and offered as-is or frozen. After eating the food they can continue enjoying the toy. Foraging, which can be a highly satisfying activity, can be done using a snuffle mat, hiding food in balls of paper, or simply sprinkling food in the grass and letting the dog search, find, and enjoy!

Photo collage showing a dog playing tug with a toy, a dog bringing a ball to a person's hand, and a dog sitting facing a person focusing on the person.

Social Enrichment is about fulfilling a dog’s needs for interaction with others. At Summit Kennels this is primarily through human interaction, although dogs from the same household may interact with each other. Social enrichment is achieved through 1:1 play (fetch, chase, tug, catch), going on walks, and working on obedience or other training exercises.

A dog sniffing a large pile of boxes

Occupational Enrichment gives dogs a “job” that stimulates them through mental challenges and exercise. Fun examples of this are playing hide and seek with toys or treats, playing fetch, or working on obedience exercises.