Happy Dog: 101 Easy Enrichment Activities for a Healthy, Happy, Well-Behaved Pup

by Chelsea Barstow

Go beyond training and tricks with enrichment activities to improve your dog’s mental health from TikTok dog enrichment specialist Chelsea Barstow.

It’s time to take a big step beyond the regular old sit, stay, and roll over with your dog. Canine enrichment can help reduce stress in your dog as well as give them a constructive way to drain their energy. We all know what it’s like to be bored at home, and with a dog, boredom leads to trouble.

With Happy Dog , you will learn simple ways to stimulate your dog’s mind and keep them occupied whenever they need. From rolling treats in a towel, to playing the Find It game, a variety of lick mats, creating obstacles your dog must navigate, going on an adventure walk, and canine puzzles, there are tons of ways to help keep your dog mentally (and physically) happy and healthy.

Genres: Dogs, Nonfiction, Animals

221 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 21, 2023

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a helpful guide to different types of enrichment activities to try with your dog. Not every idea is groundbreaking, but I wrote many down to try. I liked that each provided context on “why” that activity is beneficial for your dog.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the proud fur-mama of two very smart and lovable Miniature Schnauzers, I am always looking for new ways to keep them enriched and entertained. Due to the ever-increasing prevalence of loose and stray dogs in our community, I have been finding it more and more difficult to enrich my dogs’ lives in the “typical” ways - walks, visits to the park, sniffaris around the neighborhood, etc.

I have several safe enrichment activities in my repertoire, but I am always looking for more, which is why I was thrilled to discover former zookeeper and animal enrichment expert Chelsea Barstow’s Happy Dog: 101 Enrichment Activities for a Healthy, Happy, Well-Behaved Pup. While many of the activities that I currently use with my dogs are included in this book, Chelsea has so many more that I never even considered.

Divided into six types of enrichment - environmental, food, sensory, cognitive, social, and miscellaneous - Happy Dog is chock full of easy enrichment activities designed to make your dog's life more fulfilling. Each enrichment activity is presented with a brief overview, and then explains how to do it and how it helps. Some of these activities are as simple as letting your pup eat their meal in a new location, such as the backyard, while others are more labor intensive, such as creating a cardboard food puzzle for your dog made from packaging scraps. While some involve traveling, such as going to the beach or going on a hike, others can be done without ever leaving your home - for example, setting up a mirror so that your dog can observe its reflection or letting your dog engage in scatter feeding.

I found this book to be packed with incredibly useful and insightful information about how our dogs perceive the world and the ways that we can make their lives more enriching. I borrowed this book from my local library, but I am considering purchasing my own copy so that I can always have it on hand when I need a new activity for my pups (and that is saying a lot because even though I am a librarian, I am not a collector of books!)

Highly recommended for all dog lovers looking to make their furbabies’ lives a little brighter.

[Book Mama · Rating 2 out of 5]

If “this could have been an email” were a book it would be this book. It’s basically just a list of different toys or treats you could buy or make for your dog alongside cute little illustrations. They didn’t even bother to make sure the illustrations on each page were different (this particularly bothered me because I felt that the illustrations were the best part) If you are looking for a light book that reads like a blogpost this is it.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun tips, and easy things to do with your dog.

[TJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written with lots of activities

I was impressed with this book that provides dog owners with a variety of different activities and enrichment to help pups develop positively and older dogs remain active.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun ideas!

[Harriet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book to complement anything you already have on dog training, behaviour and health.

I really appreciated the section explaining the purpose of enrichment and I like the format for the activities, explaining what they do and how to adapt them.

The activities vary in complexity, with some very simple, while others require a lot of prep. Some are more providing context on how a lot of normal activities provide stimulation for your dog, like practicing trained behaviours in a range.of settings, or taking your dog with you if you go to see a friend. I appreciated these, because even though I would have done them anyway, now I better appreciate how my dog might experience them.

[Beverly Hallfrisch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to follow format and quick material.