Enrichment is an important part of every animal’s health and well-being and allows an animal to express natural behavior in a safe and healthy manner. Enrichment is often categorized into sensory, environmental, food, social, and cognitive enrichment, and these categories may overlap or be used together to create a well-rounded enrichment experience for an animal. These categories of enrichment also fall into active, or human-guided, and passive, or self-guided categories. Captive animals, farm animals, and companion animals can all benefit from enrichment as part of their routine care. This study focuses on enrichment for owned dogs in North America and the United Kingdom and how these opportunities affect the dog-human relationship.

In the shelter setting, providing passive enrichment opportunities such as frozen Kongs, boxes to shred, toys, or playing different types of music in the kennel area have been shown to benefit the dogs’ well-being and lessen stress-related behaviors. These passive opportunities are for the dogs only and do not involve human contact aside from placing the item(s) in the dogs’ kennels. There is also evidence that periods of human contact benefits shelter dogs and improves their welfare. Though human-animal interactions and passive enrichment have been shown to decrease stress in dogs, there is a lack of data to show how these two concepts could work together and affect the human side of the relationship in companion animals. This study seeks to discover the relationship between human contact through active enrichment and the effect on the dog-human relationship.

Adults who own a dog between the ages of 1 and 8 years old will be asked to fill out a survey on their dog’s weekly activities including walks, training, puzzles or treats, and play time as well as how the dog owner feels about offering these activities. They will also be asked to give a basic history on their dog such as where they acquired the dog, breed, and current medical or behavior issues they are treating. Participants will also fill out the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS) survey, which will be used to measure their overall satisfaction with owning a dog. 

With this information, relationships between types of enrichment, frequency of enrichment, breed, age, and dog owner satisfaction may be found. By exploring how the dog-owner relationship is affected when owner-guided, or active enrichment is provided, the results may be able to support recommendations of enrichment activities, improve owned dog welfare, and provide mutually-beneficial activities to dog owners that strengthen their bond.

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Enrichment study