ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES:
Some ideas for border collie enrichment – these activities often form a key part of behaviour plans so having lots of choice is great. If you know of any others that aren’t on here, please share them below and I’ll add them to the list:
- Lickimat or kong stuffed with something very high value on, perhaps a small amount of canned dog food, yoghurt or cheese paste? Won’t last long but is useful to bring down arousal if needed. Lickimat Tuff are ideal. Freezing the lickimat and food makes it last a lot longer! I have a whole shelf of frozen lickimats and filled kongs in my freezer in case I need them in an emergency!
- Snuffle mat – again with something high value such as very small cubes of cheese/sausage. Once dogs are used to finding high value foods, you can start to reduce the value and use their usual kibble.
- Other treat-dispensing toys (kong wobbler, or this treat ball are good).
- Rags of cloth plaited or tea towels tied in knots with high-value treats hidden in the knots/pleats.
- Items from the recycling: cereal boxes, plastic bottles with kibble inside and no lid, Amazon packaging: cut holes in and put food inside.
- A forage box (the big plastic boxes with little wheels on that slide under beds are good for this) that contains various different toys, lickimat, snuffle mat, puzzle toys, cardboard or plastic objects from the recycling or other household objects with treats hidden in and around everything. You can hide treats in a loo roll with newspaper pushed in each end, or put holes in cardboard boxes or plastic bottles (sand down any sharp edges) and put treats in these. You can also collect leaves, bark, fir cones, twigs, and other bits and pieces from walks that will have different interesting smells on them. Keep the lid on, but every time you need to distract him, take the lid off and let him investigate the box. A good forage box should keep them entertained for about 20 minutes. Ask relatives and neighbours to save their junk for you! This video shows how to set up a forage box.
- Free work – this video explains this really well. This is a great exercise for building dogs’ confidence, so could be useful if your dog is anxious or stressed, such as when you have people to visit.
- Long lasting natural chews, such as ostrich bones, pizzles, beef skin etc can be given to him for half an hour, then removed (swap for something very high value) and rotated round on different days. These chews are fairly odourless and long lasting:
• Beef tails
• Braided lamb
• Large ostrich bone
• Moon bone
• Ostrich tendons - Hiding kibble food or toys in the garden for him to find – start off in easy places and show him it, saying “find it’ or similar, then work up to more difficult places so he really has to use his nose to find it. Or the same sort of thing with toys.
- Training tricks, or something like mat settle counts as an enrichment activity. This video playlist shows how to teach mat settle.
- Pattern games are great games to teach at home and can be used out and about to regulate arousal. Up Down, Ping Pong and Out for the Count are all great examples of pattern games.
- Remember that you can give your dog their entire daily allowance of food within border collie enrichment activities!
- Scent training is another great training activity – this video shows how to get started.