236. Enrichment Isn’t Extra: Why Your Dog Needs It

0:02 Hey there, it's Jess. If you're new here, I'm a certified professional canine nutritionist, raw nutrition certified for dogs and cats, a holistic pet health coach, the founder of Wild Wellness Pet, and the host of the Pet Parenting Reset podcast that you're listening to right now, where every pet deserves the absolute best and every pet parent is welcome. Learn from the best holistic and integrative experts in veterinary medicine and nutrition every Tuesday right here on this podcast. Or get individualized help with your pet through one-on-one consultations and take a deep dive into the root cause with the Wild Wellness Bioenergetics at Home testing kit. It's time to rethink how we raise our pets.

0:46 A reset to naturally healthy dogs and cats. If you've been feeling like there has to be something more, something better, a better way to raise healthier pets, welcome to the pet Parenting Reset. Welcome back, pet parent. Today's episode is another very exciting one for so many reasons. One is because, well, we talk about this all the time without talking about this, so we're going to get more in depth on it today. I'll tell you what that is in just a second. But also, I'm just really excited for today's guest because I've actually been following her for a really long time and I never really thought about having her on the show. And then she reached out to me and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so amazing. So first of all, we're going to be talking about canine enrichment today.

1:33 And enrichment is again, something we talk about without really talking about it all the time because it is so important. It's very foundational. It's in the like 6 step plan of everything we need to do to make our pets healthier and happier. But actually getting into like the nitty gritty of what that means is something we haven't really talked about on the podcast. So I'm really excited to welcome Tori Mystic on the Pet Parenting Reset podcast today because she is a canine enrichment expert. So welcome, Tori. Hey, Jessica, thank you so much. I can't believe that we haven't connected face to face before, so this is awesome. Yeah, I know. I'm really excited about it.

2:13 And so is my my little kitten Camden, very involved here today. He's usually much more of a menace than what he is right now. And I see you've got and. I have Burton, little appearance, He's always napping right behind me and usually the way I sit, you don't see him. But you come from time to time, Yeah. I just saw him. I know my dog is not with me at the moment. I'm back and forth between. I'm like living in two different places and just bringing my dog back and forth. Sometimes I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to go record at the other place so you can stay here for a little. While you might enjoy the downtime, and we can get into that actually too, with enrichment. Yeah. So I think first of all, let's just introduce you a little bit.

2:54 Tell me about you. Tell me about how you're doing what you're doing because like, I just know you from having a very successful social media and like this is what you share. You share, you know, pet tips and a lot of enrichment. And that's kind of how I started following you in the 1st place was like, well, I want to be successful on social media. Sometimes, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'm like, this is just trash. Let me get off here. I know, I know, but it's a double edged sword to have all these followers, yeah. Right, I know, but it's, it's, it's, it's still nice at the end of the day to like when you are somebody that like yourself, who has a positive message, who is genuinely trying to improve the lives of pets and pet parents.

3:44 Like that kind of to me, I feel like that's what pushes me forward, even in those times when I'm like, I feel like crap. And this person just made me feel like, you know, the worst in the world. But I still feel like, like the message is important and that keeps me going. And so anyway, I want to hear more about like how you got to where you are. Well, I guess it goes back, I started my blog and my blog is called Wear wagrepeat.com and if I had known this was going to become my career 13 years later when I started my blog 13 years ago, I probably would have chosen a different and easier to say name. But here we are today. So 13 years ago I just started this blog as a hobby, as a way to document my passions in life, which at the time were style and dog.

4:33 So that's why it's wear repeat. And my original tagline was I wear it, they wag it and then we repeat. So it was equal parts like outfit photos and I love DIY's and crafts and sewing. And then it was a lot of dog stuff. And I found out very quickly that the dog stuff was a lot more engaging even back then 13 years ago when I was blogging. This was before I even had Instagram, and I know I'm old. I started that before Instagram like existed. But on my blog, dog people found me at the time that in blogging there was a way to like kind of network with other bloggers and the dog people were so welcoming and so friendly. The fashion bloggers, not so much. So I ended up just kind of by happenstance going in this dog direction and I gradually grew it over time. And at the time, I had other jobs that I was juggling. I've always been someone who has a lot of different jobs at one time.

5:32 And over the years, I was able to kind of gradually quit and downsize some of those other jobs. And then I started doing Wear Wag repeat full time in 2019, I believe. And so I was doing sponsored posts and then someone said, you know, you should think about starting a membership. And I did that. It was kind of a compliment to one of my podcasts that I have where I interview women in the pet industry. So I love all things digital marketing. I went to school for marketing. So that's kind of how I knew how to grow my following online. And of course, a lot of people were like, how did you do that? Can you show us how to do that? And that's where my podcast and my membership kind of came into play. And, and I've just kind of immersed myself in the pet industry and, and it's, and I, I don't, I don't look back at all because it's just full of so many wonderful people and so many people are getting new pets all the time. So there's always fresh people out there to share your expertise with.

6:31 And something that I found in, in this process in the last, I don't know, 5 or 6 years was that I was, I was getting kind of frustrated on social media because there were a lot of people sharing dog stuff that I thought was really bad advice and sometimes very dangerous advice. I don't know if you remember in the pandemic, there was someone who wrapped Saran wrap over their head with peanut butter and was using that as a trick to cut their dog's nails. So things like that inspired me to become certified in canine enrichment and I also am certified in pet first aid and CPR and I'm always doing lots of continuing education because people trust what they see you sharing on the Internet.

7:16 And I just felt like I had a responsibility to share well researched science backed dog behavior information online that people could really trust and that was safe and was going to enhance their life and their pets life. So that's kind of how I became the dog enrichment person online. So, Long story short. Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, that's my story too. It's a roller coaster. It's twists and turns. It's all the things. I get it. I totally get it. And yes, there is so much bad information online and I while I hate it, I also like, I'm that person that I'm like everybody has a right to be present and talk about where they are. Cuz I know when I started, I, I restarted a bunch of times, but the first where I really kind of like have that delineation of this is how I feel like I started to where I am now at least.

8:10 I literally just started. I've started posting a video on YouTube every single day of this is what I learned today in the process of me learning how to feed my dog, like actually make food for my dogs. And it was just everyday. What did I learn today? And I put that video out on YouTube and I wasn't like, I'm an expert at this. I'm just like, this is what I've learned today. And I want you to know that too. Yeah, no, I think that's so helpful and like it's a great example because you don't have to overthink, you know, you don't have to go get some four year degree in whatever this is. Like we research very thoroughly, yeah, anything that we're going to do for our pets. So you and I know how hard it is to research some of that.

8:52 So if we can share that with people, I think that's a huge service. Yeah, well and then canine enrichment. So this is 1st, I mean, such a fascinating topic to me because I did dabble in dog training for a little while and I feel like enrichment is a huge part of that, at least how I presented it to my clients at the time. Like enrichment was huge because I think one of the, one of the biggest like misnomers in dog training is not that we're training the dog to not do something. Because I think most people think that they're like, I don't want my dog to do this anymore. And my question is always, OK, what do you want them to do? And so.

9:33 Look at you like I never thought about that, right? So it for me, like enrichment was a huge part of that because we want them to do something else, then we want them to do something positive. So anyway, let's talk about like what actually is enrichment. You're the professional here, so I want to hear it from you. Well, I agree with you that there's a lot of myths and misconceptions. So a lot of people think that enrichment is a babysitter for their dog to get their dog to leave them alone for a while. You know, a lot of people think that a peanut butter Kong, that's all there is, that's enrichment and that's what it is, but there is a lot more to it. So the kind of analogy that I like to use, if you go to the store and you buy pasta, I was buying pasta the other day and on the box it says enriched, made with enriched flour.

10:19 And that means it has added nutrients to make it better, to make it healthier, to make it superior than plain flour. And so that's kind of what enrichment is. So like your dog's life is like their normal life, but you add enrichment to make it better, to make it healthier, to make it more positive for them. And there's a lot of different ways that you can do that. So there's like 7 or 8 different categories of enrichment that you can tap into. And some of those are passive enrichment, like music or just having visual around the room. Some of those things are are are sort of passive, but like calming, like calmly petting your dog and and touch. Physical enrichment through touch like that is really important. And then there's active things, which would could be like agility or running through the woods and stepping over twigs and feeling different surfaces on their paws.

11:08 And of course there's food based enrichment too, which a lot of people know about. And often times food is kind of linked with cognitive because people like to get these brain game puzzles and you can hide little treats and stuff in there. But there's, there's just there's so much that we could go on and on and on about it. But I, I think that what I am trying to teach people through my new podcast, which is just called Dog Enrichment with Tory Misty, I went for a very obvious name. I learned my lesson with Wear Wagger Pete and I just went for obvious this time. So on my new podcast, I really try to encourage people to realize that enrichment is about something you do together with your dog. It's not a babysitter. It's not a way to get your dog to leave you alone. It's something you can do together that is going to strengthen the bond that you share, but it's also going to make your life so much better.

12:00 So it's going to make your dog's life better, but you are also going to find so much more joy and fulfillment, and you're going to enjoy being around your dog more when you do things together instead of just sending your dog off on their own. Well, we did a like a new year pet nutrition reset challenge, myself and Lauren Beck's with Girls Gone Raw and that was one of the things on the checklist that we put together was like bonding time. Whether that would it like foam free bonding time, phone free bonding time and doing things like acupressure and massage. And I think that is overlooked a lot for pet parents fun like just the actual physical health benefits of moving the fascia and, and letting like blood flow and everything move in the body. Because there's a lot of stagnation in our bodies and in our pets bodies, especially pets that are like chronically stressed that we can, we can do with them, but it helps us. I actually feel like it helps us even more than it helps our pets because just like that might be the only time a day we're putting our phone down.

13:09 Yes. Not. I'm not looking at a screen or reading anything or talking to anyone. You're just focusing in the moment. That's the gift that dogs give us. Yeah, and I, I also love the idea that I kind of, I have like a love hate relationship with the idea that we can just use trash to create enrichment. And I do this, I do this more with my cats honestly than with my dogs. But I, I literally like we just have trash in the house. I don't know if you're a good pet parent or you're a good cat parent if you don't just have random trash that you throw on the floor to have your cats play with. Like we have boxes from Christmas sitting like there's like there's like box for it for my cats and I'm like, I hate it so much.

13:52 Like I want this trash out of my house but also they enjoy it. I know, I know. Well, you know you can get rid of that, those boxes and you'll I'm sure new boxes will appear in their place. Yes, absolutely. But I guess the whole point of what I was getting at was like, this doesn't have to be expensive. I know, yeah. So it doesn't have to be expensive. You don't have to go out to the store and buy all of these complicated plastic puzzles. You can make your own puzzles with cardboard boxes, egg cartoons, yogurt containers. I have an embarrassing stash of yogurt containers in my basement that I, I just, I, I'm like, I'm going to reuse these as an enrichment game for the dogs.

14:34 And then there's pretty sturdy. And so I get like a few more uses out of them. So I end up with quite a big stash. But you can do something as simple as putting their dinner in in a series of these containers and kind of stacking them together. I call that a busy box. That's one of the activities in my mental enrichment activity pack. So I, I created this mini online course with 10 kind of novel enrichment activities and the busy box is just my hands down favorite one because it's free, it's eco friendly because you're reusing stuff. You know, most people don't get like 4 uses out of their yogurt containers like I do. And what I love about that in particular is when I was researching for my podcast, what kept coming up over and over again is how novelty is so important for enrichment.

15:22 So if your dog is doing the exact same thing every single day, the benefits actually start to decline and they can actually turn into into negatives. So if your dog, if you're giving your dog the exact same Kong or topple or puzzle or whatever every single day, not only are they going to get bored of it, but it's going to turn out to be frustrating to them. So it's actually going to create negative feelings. So it's really important to have novelty and with this busy box, it's different every time because so you're getting different boxes, you're using different sizes. You can, you know, mess around with what kind of treats you're putting inside to add even more variety. You know, little changes like that actually can make a big difference when it comes to enrichment.

16:04 Yeah. And I actually, I want to get into some like case idea like with you. But before we do that, I want to apologize to people because a very long time ago I put out a video about I was still a dog trainer at this time. And I was trying to figure out a way to one of the things I like to do with dogs was like, just toss their food into the yard to let them go, like better feeding or yeah, and I'm a raw feeder. And I'm like, how can I do this with raw food? And at the time I went and got these like little silicone muffin. Yeah. Thing I can't remember, I don't the word is escaping. I used to have.

16:46 One of those sitting right to my desk, but I organize and now it's not here anymore. And so I just put little pieces of my dog's food in those and scattered them around the yard. And I want to apologize because I feel like we could literally just do the same thing with their raw food and toss pieces out in the yard. Because actually, as long as with a caveat of your lawn not being treated. So if it's organic and you're not putting chemicals on on your lawn, then that's actually beneficial in and of itself to have your pet eat off of the dirt because of the microbes in the dirt can be really, really beneficial to them. So I want to apologize about that, but. I think, but I don't think you have to apologize because that is just another novel way that you could do it.

17:29 You could use the silicone tray or you could scatter feed right in the grass, or you can put it in a series of yogurt containers and egg cartoons and put those out in the grass. It's just about variety, you know, I think that's what's important. Yeah, yeah. So, OK, I do want to talk a little bit more specifically about non food related enrichment because I do feel like whether we're just talking about enrichment for the sake of enrichment or if we're talking about like training or whatever. One of the biggest like pushbacks that I see very often, especially with positive reinforcement trainers, cuz I very big proponent of positive reinforcement is that people are like, well, you're just pushing snacks.

18:11 So of course, as long as you have food, they're going to do what you want. And that's obviously, I mean, I'm sure you know, not the point of training that like you slowly decrease and still get the same response from your dog. But that is a big thing with people. And then of course, there are dogs that need to lose weight. And so we don't want to be doing food all the time. And there's just a lot of different instances in where in which we we may not want to use food for enrichment. So I'd love to have you like, dive into that a little bit more. Yeah, so I have a million ideas for non food based enrichment. And then there's also dogs who just are not really food motivated.

18:53 I, knock on wood, hope that I never have a dog that's not food motivated, but I know that they're out there because their owners are always asking me what can I do? So. So there's a lot of different things and I think it's important to try a lot of different things and see what your particular dog likes and enjoys because enrichment is not one-size-fits-all. So when it comes to non food based enrichment, a couple things that come to mind would be physical enrichment of course and that is about giving your dog access to very different movement. So it might be doing some kind of agility which you don't have to use treats at all. As a matter of fact, when you watch agility competitions on TV at National Dog Show or Westminster or something, a lot of times the dog is rewarded with their favorite toy, like a tennis ball or their favorite squeaker or something like that.

19:41 So you can use other types of rewards, but also just going out for a walk in a place that you've never been before, giving your dog access to sniff around woods. Physical enrichment also includes walking on varied terrain. This is one of my favorite things to recommend to people because I think that. As people, we overlook this because when we're walking outside, 99.9% of the time you have shoes on. So we overlook how different the sensations are of different surfaces. But your dog is feeling so much through their paws and they're getting different weight, just distribution. They're using different muscles. If they're walking on something like sand or if you ask your dog to walk along a log that fell down in the woods, or walking on pavement versus grass, mulch, squishy, the wet mud versus dry mud, gravel. I mean, there's so many different surfaces out there. If you just walk out your door, you'll start noticing more than you ever thought existed.

20:42 And giving your dog the opportunity to sort of walk through those can be very enriching. And my dog Bert, he's almost 14 years old and he's a Labrador, so he's getting up there. But we go for walks in the woods almost every day. And I'm always looking for places where he can walk over. He's a step over sticks and stuff or walk up a little incline or walk up or down stairs there just so that he's getting different different kinds of interactions, different sensations there. So physical enrichment is a really great way to do that. And then I also don't want to overlook or have people forget about passive enrichment, which I mentioned a little bit earlier. So there's a lot of wonderful studies out there about the impact of music on dogs and the most effective genres of music, according to several of these studies that have been done mainly with shelter dogs, are classical music and reggae, and some like classic rock or like Ray LaMontagne, which I really like listening to.

21:41 That kind of his music is usually the right beats per minute, like a 50 to 60 beats per minute has been proven to be one of the more relaxing tempos of music for dogs. One of our goals with enrichment, like you were saying with dog training, enrichment is so important because enrichment helps to build your dog's confidence and it helps to kind of regulate their nervous system. And, and if you have an anxious dog, if you give them opportunities to have positive interactions with things, you know, you know, you might see dogs or, or work with dogs who are terrified of walking on a tile floor in the kitchen.

22:23 And it's because those dogs haven't been exposed to that kind of stuff in a positive way. So this physical enrichment of walking on different surfaces, it sounds very basic and not that interesting, but it does help your dog build confidence so that they're not as anxious in new situations and new settings. And so music and playing different you can actually find on on YouTube and Spotify, like household noises or city noises or country noises. Giving your dog the opportunity to hear these kind of different sounds that they may have never heard before will help prepare them and give them the confidence if they are in a new situation where like they hear a cow mooing and they've never heard that before. So, so there's a lot of things that you can do that have nothing to do with food and, and a lot of times they're just kind of subtle like like those two examples I share. So you mentioned earlier that, you know, enrichment is not just something that you do to busy your dog, though I, I feel like that's how a lot of people use it. Do you ever have like instances where you're like, I get it, like you just need an hour, but what do you tend to recommend for people who are like, I just, I just need a minute and like. Yes.

23:37 Help me out. If you do just need a minute, one thing that I would recommend is a high quality natural chew and you want to supervise this a little bit because you don't want it to turn into a choking hazard. So it's not completely set it and forget it. But there have been some studies that have measured the saliva of dogs to see how much the levels of stress hormones and cortisol in their saliva based on different activities. And so one of those was licking, so like licking a Kong or a lickmat or something like that. And another one was deep jaw chewing on something like an all natural chew, so like a bully stick or my favorite personally that I think lasts a very long time is to buy a beef trachea and stuff it with your dog's food and freeze it. And that has a long lasting chew. So these these chews that cause your dog to use, they're kind of like back teeth.

24:30 They're deep jaw chewing. 10 minutes of that has been proven to lower their cortisol levels more than licking a stuffed toy like a Kong or a topple or a Lick nut. So if you really do use your dog to leave you alone, I would recommend doing something like that because it is also going to help your dog mellow out. It's going to make them less stressed, less hyperactive, and hopefully more relaxed. A problem that I see people are a mistake I see people doing is they go out and they play a really high energy game of fetch or they get their dog all excited and then they want their dog to leave them alone immediately afterward.

25:13 And your dog does not understand that. So I would encourage instead to give them a calming activity and then they're probably going to be calmer after that and I think you'll be setting them up for success. So Speaking of mistakes, I want to circle back to you brought up earlier, the lady that did the like Saran wrap with the peanut butter. Tell me about that. Well, this was I think in the pandemic because people couldn't go to the groomer to get their dogs nails trimmed. And we found out that no one knows how to trim their dogs nails because everyone was like, what do I do? And so there was a woman who on TikTok or something wrapped around her bare forehead, Saran wrap and put peanut butter on it so her dog would lick that and then try to cut her dog's nails.

26:06 And there's just so many problems with that. It's very dangerous. I trim my dog's nails myself and you know, I've never had them react badly to it, but that, you know, we do it a little bit at a time. My late dog Lucy really hated having her nails trimmed. And so sometimes if she was uncomfortable, I would literally do 1 nail a day and then, you know, we would get it done gradually. But what that woman was doing was just so dangerous. I mean, the, the dog bite risk is very high if your dog is not accustomed to that, it's also just not very sanitary to do that. And, and there's a lot of other better ways. You know, I have a wonder, wonderful lick mat that has suction cups on the back of it that you could suction it to the wall of your shower or your refrigerator or whatever, and you could trim your dog's nails safely that way.

26:59 So, you know, there's a lot of things you see people do on the Internet that's like it becomes a trend. A lot of people did that after that woman showed that video. You know, hopefully, I hope nobody was hurt, but it's just a dangerous idea. Yeah, I was wondering about how many people got bit even like like not full bites, but just like. Nipped. Because because not only are you asking your dog to eat off of your face, but then you're also performing like this behavior, this action on your dog that they don't probably like and. That most dogs are anxious about, yeah. Yes, I at the beginning of the pandemic, I actually took Doctor Busby. So she has these things called toe grips and she has a course that she has out and I don't, it was probably like 100 bucks, but she teaches you how to trim your dog's nails like this video series.

27:53 And I took that because I was like, I need to learn how to trim my dog's nails. And I it was one of the best investments I've made as far as like care for my pets because it's expensive. I was literally, I mean like just going, I don't go to the groomers, but because I don't I tighter test but and the groomers won't accept that, but I would go take them to the vet to get their nails trimmed and that's expensive. Yes, yeah, I like I literally I just took my dog the other day because I just I just couldn't do it. I'm by myself now. So I'm like I just couldn't do it. I had tried and tried and tried so I and it was like 35 bucks. Yeah, I know, I know. Well, a lot of the things that I do, I'm a frugal girl, just I love saving.

28:39 And so I had, I just have Bert now, but I had two Labradors, you know, big 80 LB Labradors and vaccines, nail trims, grooming, vet appointment. Like it all gets so expensive when you have multiple large dogs and I have found so many amazing money saving hacks. Like for a while we were we were getting vaccines and and even check UPS at the local rescue league and they offered discounted veterinary services with qualified veterinarian just as good. So we were doing that for a while and I I love finding ways to save money on the top. Well, I mean, really though, like spending money, it's $35 for one nail trim for my dog versus $100 for this course, which you should really be trimming their nails like every two weeks or something.

29:27 So it's worth the $100. It's absolutely. And this is not an ad, this is not sponsored, but I'll put it the link in the show notes because you should know how to do this with your dogs. Another thing going back, I think everyone should learn some form of even like don't be you don't need to become a massage therapist for your dog, but like just learn some simple tips and tricks on how to, you know, do gentle massages on your dog. Because that's another thing that I do pretty much every night on the couch. Whatever time I do have to sit on the couch in the evenings, even if I'm working on my laptop, I will still take time every single night and kind of just go over and touch every part of my dog because things pop up quickly.

30:18 And it's to me such a shame that often groomers are the first ones to be like, did you know that there's this golf ball ball sized like mass on your dog, right? Like that's I could not imagine like not knowing my dog had anything pop up on her, but not just like things that pop up on them, but you know, working with their range of motion and their legs to know like touching their paw pads to do they have sensitivity anywhere like these. This is really easy and free and bonding again. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought this up because this is a type of physical enrichment and it's something you can do with your dog.

30:58 And it actually not only lowers their cortisol levels, it lowers your own cortisol levels to the action of petting your pet can actually make you calmer. Your cortisol is like your stress hormone. So, you know, cortisol can lead to inflammation. They can lead to health problems. So actually petting your dog is making both of you healthier. And I love to do this. My dog Bert, we he's kind of he trained me into a little routine where every night before we go to bed, I like, I like to fall asleep with him not in my bed because he's a bed hog. So he has to go to sleep on his own bed. But then in the middle of the night, he comes up here into my bed. But before we go to sleep, he always gets up on my bed and I give him a little massage before we go to sleep and we go to our our separate beds.

31:46 And he just last night I was doing this and I was like, you know, it's so important to be in the moment and just notice kind of what he's leaning into and what he wants more of. So I was rubbing his ear and last night he just was loving it more than usual. Usually I like rub his face and I do little circles on his chest and rub his shoulders and stuff. But last night, just the ears, he was like, Oh my God, that's like the best thing ever. And it's just, if you just are present and pay attention to your dog, that's what I love about enrichment. You know, we have gotten, I've gotten to know my dogs better. We can communicate better because I noticed their body language and their signals and and we just have a great bond because because I like to do things together with them. And I think those routines are important as well. Like I, I do thrive in routine, but I think our pets, like, not maybe not every human is going to admit that they thrive on routines, but I think our pets, generally speaking, really do. So like, setting these routines up for them also lets them know what to expect.

32:59 And they're less. Yeah. I think routines can be good, but mixing in some kind of novelty or variety. I just want to put that little plug in there because for example, you know, maybe the routine is you have dinner at the same time every night, but the variety is that sometimes it's in a slow feeder bowl, sometimes it's on a mat, sometimes it's in a busy box or scattered in the yard or whatever. So I think that there's there's ways to find variety within the routine and I think that would be something great for people to explore. Yeah. So what are some of your favorite enrichment ideas or what are some of the things that maybe people in your membership have brought to you? And you're like, that's really cool. So one thing that people often ask me about and I, and I see people out in the, in the wild doing this as well, is, you know, there's a, there's a place where I walk my dogs and I, I know I'm just in the habit of saying dogs, even though my dog Lucy passed away last year.

34:00 But but you know, if, you know, you know, it's just, you can't get out of the habit of saying dogs. So there's this place where we walk and you know, I saw this woman walking her dog in there and she's like, Oh my God, we're at the end of the walk. And like, I just let him run towards the car and he's on leash and she's running like she's almost falling and tripping over herself because her dog is running like a Wildman towards the car at the end of the loop. And she's like, he, I just wish he would calm down at the end of the walk. And I was thinking, well, are you giving him the opportunity to calm down South? One of Lucy's favorite enrichment activities was something we call Sit and Watch the World Go by, which is, again, very simple, free activity. And it's something that you can do at home. If you have a porch, it's like porch sitting basically with your dog.

34:49 Or if you're out of the park, it is, you know, sitting on a bench on a rock or something and just watching the birds, the leaves, the squirrels, the other people, the dogs, the cars, just listening, sniffing, watching the world around them. And giving your dog this time to kind of decompress after a walk or a game of fetch or whatever is a really great way to kind of regulate their nervous system and signal to them like through kind of routine where if they know like, OK, I can be wild on our walk, but then at the end of every walk we sit and we just chill out. This will kind of help your dog realize that, you know, cuz usually most people after the walk, they want their dogs to be calm.

35:32 That was like the point of going on the walk. But this is just a mistake I see people making is that they, you know, they just do really high energy, high octane things and they expect their dog to be immediately chill. And they're not always giving them just like 5 minutes of sitting and watching the world go by. And if you can sit and watch the world go by with them, I think it will do you a lot of good. But you could also use that time to check your emails if you just can't help it, you know, So that's one of my absolute favorite activities that I think is overlooked a lot. And, and when people have done that with their dogs, I hear great feedback about it. Another example, another activity that I love that I know a lot of other people love is doing hide and seek with your dog. So that's something you can do outside, outdoors, or you can do it inside your house.

36:21 So this is one of my favorite rainy day activities where I'll ask my dog to sit and stay in his place or his crate or whatever. And I will go hide somewhere in another room and then I'll say search and he'll have to come running. Sometimes I'm upstairs or sometimes I'm just in the next room and he'll have to come and find me. And it's, it's really fun and hysterical game to play with your dog sometimes. Sometimes he finds me right away and then sometimes like I can see him and somehow he doesn't see me and can't find me. So you can kind of realize how much your dog is using their sense of smell and not as much their sense of sight. So it's very, it's very fun and and a great way to get to know your dog. Yeah.

37:06 Well, so many things there. So. And I think that's also a good way to, like, stay in connection with your dog, especially as they're aging, to see, like, is their eyesight maybe not as good as it used to be as their hearing, maybe not as good as it used to be? Like just staying on top of those, like, health things. My cat plays fetch. I can see what's happening. Now is a great time to play fetch. Also I am such a big conspiracy theorist and I have this. It's not my conspiracy but I have read about a conspiracy as to like why we don't have porches anymore. They don't build houses with porches anymore and it is my goal to like my forever home is going to have a porch on it.

37:49 I had my vision board a couple years ago, was a porch with it with a Labrador on it because I was like I want to just sit on a porch with my dog. Right, I know like this is this is something that we need like especially for women. I will say like hustle culture to a point. I get it because like I think you very well understand, like we are like as women, we are doing so much more and like being productive and being all the things and being front and center and like, so we have to hustle to do that. But at the same time, it's like incredibly detrimental to our health and completely against our natural cycles.

38:30 Like just having literally just having a porch on your house. So I live in a neighborhood with porches. My house doesn't have a porch because instead I it was like it was kind of a porch and then I turned it into an entryway bathroom kind of situation. So I sort of got rid of my own porch, but everyone else has a porch. And I do have to say it's so nice as a way to connect with my neighbors because if you're just out there and no one's got an agenda, you're just kind of hanging out and you see your neighbor over there, you end up talking to them. And to be honest, I've, I've become good friends with my neighbor right across the street. And she fosters kitties and dogs sometimes.

39:12 And I'll go over and feed the pets for her sometimes if she can't get home. And sometimes she'll come over and give my dog Bert his meds if I can't get home in time. So, yeah, going out, you know, that's like socialize social enrichment with your dog and your neighbors. You never know how it might help you, you know. Takes a village to raise dog. It does. And I Speaking of socialization, like I truly that was something that close to the end of like the period where I was just like I was so fed up with dog training because dog training is people training. Like I don't yeah, people don't quite understand that it's people training and I was just so fed up with it and I was trying at the very end like tail into this. I was like, I'm going to put together this like huge socialization checklist for puppies. And I started it and I was like, I got, I just got really frustrated with it because every time I would post a piece of content about it on social media, I just got so much like backlash with like, nobody has time for this. And I just want to take my dog to the dog park. And this was years ago, right?

40:16 Like I feel like I have a different audience now, but it is. It is enrichment like socialization is enrichment. Oh, yes, yeah. And it does not, not don't go to the dog park because honestly, guys, if you were to ask any emergency vet, they will say most of the emergencies that come in are a result of the dog park. So, you know, there are some places that I take my dog to that are dog parks, but their trails and streams and they're like acres and acres and acres. The problem is those small, too small, little fenced in patches of dirt where not only, you know, is it kind of a little dangerous and people aren't paying attention to their dogs, but there's just like germs and like it just don't go there.

41:09 Instead. There's so many other ways to socialize your dogs. Meeting people, other people, doing a parallel walk where you're walking your dog here and someone else is walking their dog next to you. And if your dog's a little reactive, you guys can walk 20 feet apart from each other. That's social enrichment for your dog. Believe it or not. They don't have to wrestle and play like a high contact sport with other dogs just to be socialized. Yeah. And one of the things that I started out doing with this list was, I mean, I did all of the like typical things that you would start out a puppy with who hasn't had all of their vaccines yet. So they're not like out in the world and, you know, touching their paws and touching their ears, getting in their mouth, you know, doing all of those things.

41:54 But then just taking them into like stores. That's, that can be pretty crazy enrichment for them and can be overwhelming sometimes too. But there's lots of stores that let you bring your dogs in. And I will say even like in Texas, some HEBS will let you bring them in even though it's a grocery store. They tend to not care. They're like as long as they're well behaved. Homes Depot and Lowe's are reliable I think you can always take your pet there and if it is new to your dog and you have a smaller dog you can put them in the cart. So I saw someone do this the other day. I would recommend you bring like a blanket or a mat because otherwise they might not like the feeling of the cart depending on what kind of material it is.

42:40 So you can put your dog on the cart. I, I took Bert with me to Home Depot yesterday and what probably could have taken me 10 minutes to go in and do myself. It took like 20 minutes because he loves to sniff around. I think that people at Home Depot think that he is a drug sniffing doll because he inspects everything there. But that's great social enrichment. He's seeing people around, people are coming up and saying hi to him and he's also sniffing and just, it's, it's really, really fun for him. That's important, too. I think we would be remiss if we didn't say that sniffing on walks is really important for our dogs.

43:20 And like a lot of people, especially if you like work late, you get home, you're like, I just want to take you out so that you can pee and maybe poop and come back home. But like, they've been cooped up in the house all day too. And they need that time to like decompress. Sniffing isn't just like, yes it's curiosity, but it also like helps them decompress and. Yeah, so we didn't even touch on scent work at all, which is one of the most important parts of Canon enrichment. But I sometimes don't get into it because I think like, like letting your dog sniff on walks is super great, easy, anyone can do that. But doing scent games, like doing nose work games is a little bit more advanced. And I think some pet parents, it's just like a little intimidating to them.

44:07 And, and there's a lot of great like inexpensive kits you can buy online where it'll have like a little scent pack and, and oftentimes the scent is like cedar or something like that. So it's not food. And there will be instructions and all these sets. Actually, there's an awesome set out there, a woman owned business called Hide and Scent and it's an awesome little kit that comes with a stone that has the scent in it and this like little key chain kind of thing. And it has instructions on how to play different games and how to do it super simple and how to make it more advanced. And actually that's something that I do with Burt because he just has a great nose and it doesn't really have to involve food. If your dog is food motivated, giving them some rewards around the scent is a great way to reinforce it. But it doesn't have to be food based and doing those kinds of scent games, nose work games that aren't just sniffing on a walk, but it's an actual searching for something that's actually really great cognitive enrichment too. So I'm curious, and I won't keep you too much longer, but I'm curious.

45:11 Before we started recording, you were talking about the episode I did with Kyle Kittleson. And in that episode I brought up to him the buttons that dogs and cats push to talk to you. And he is, I'm very skeptical that these animals actually understand the words. But regardless of whether they understand the words or not, I think that could be pretty good. And what? What do you think about those buttons? So it's funny you ask, because on one of my episodes of my dog enrichment podcast, I think it was the cognitive enrichment episode, I, I did a lot of research. So for that show, I, I breakdown the science that each episode is about a different category of enrichment. And I did all this research to find real scientific studies and reports that were done because I think we all talked about like, oh, this is great enrichment, but I wanted to know like, why? And so in the research for that episode, I came upon a study or a report done about the talking buttons. And this report was also very skeptical of it because I don't know, have you ever had the buttons? Tried the buttons.

46:21 I will say my dog is of all the things I have tried with her. I have tried scent work, I've tried like touch, getting her to touch things. I've tried the buttons and she is just. She literally will just sit there and stare at me like you're out of your mind, like you're just out of your mind. She won't participate at all for anything. Yeah. Well, so I've, I've had the buttons and I've had different sets of buttons and some of them the recording quality is better than others. And so this report that I found was just saying that the recording quality like what when your dog hears your voice coming out of your mouth, it doesn't sound exactly the same as it does coming out of that button.

47:05 And so the, your dog might not really know that when you say the word with your mouth that it's the same word that's coming out of the button because the sound might just sound different to them. But you're right, like they, they might understand that when they press this particular button, this thing happens or they get this thing. It's a form of communication. But I think the problem, and I didn't bring this up on that episode, but this is just like my opinion is that we always want to impress upon other animals our own culture and customs. So we know like we communicate using words. We say I want some water, we get some water.

47:46 But I think that the buttons are asking dogs to use our form of communication rather than us trying to use their form of communication. And maybe the buttons are meeting in the middle. I don't really have a definitive answer for this. But when I first started using them, a common button to start off with is like, I need to go outside, go potty. Yeah. And the reason why I kind of gave up on it is because my my old dog, Lucy, we just had such great communication with each other and she knew how to ask for what she wanted without using these buttons. So I knew when Lucy wanted to go outside or when she wanted to eat or when she just wanted to play or I knew all kinds of things that she wanted.

48:27 And so you see people who use the buttons with like an elaborate vocabulary of words. And so I don't know if I had that elaborate of a vocab with me and Lucy and our form of communication. So I love that people are doing this and I think it's really fascinating. You know, Christina Hunger, I think is definitely the leader in this. If anyone wants to learn more about it, she has a whole book about about it. And, you know, I think it's very interesting, but I am also slightly skeptical. Yeah. And that reminded me actually as you were talking about that, like I tried a lot of things with my dog. I even tried like the bell Nope she just has like I will. I have had other dogs before her that were much more willing to do things that I have asked them to do.

49:12 She's just she's just a no across the. Board everyone has their own personality, you know. Yeah, but she is. I definitely, she lets me know. Like I do understand her forms of communication. I know when she wants to go outside. I know when she wants to eat. I know when she's frustrated with one of the cat. Like, I know a lot of her. I mean, I've had her for more than 10 years now. But yeah, like, there's not much that I'm like, I don't understand what you want. Even if I tell her, like, show me she'll start walking. We can communicate. And yeah, yeah, with Lucy, like her favorite, she's favorite stuffed animal. And sometimes we'd be downstairs and in my house and I could tell she was looking for this stuffed animal. And I would say, Lucy, your baby is upstairs. You got to go upstairs and find your baby. And she would run upstairs and she knew what I was saying like go upstairs.

50:07 She knew upstairs, she knew baby and she knew find and she figured that out and she would go upstairs and find her baby. And and so, you know, we had, we had other ways of communicating. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that viewpoint that we should be taking more time to learn their form of their language, their forms of communication. We're already asking them to live in an environment that's totally outside of like how they should be living as a species. I mean, we're living outside of how we should be living, but we're asking them to live indoors with, you know, especially like in the winter time, the doors and the windows all closed and all the toxins in the air and not grounding and not seeing the mornings. Like there's so many things we're asking of them. It's like the least we can do.

50:54 Yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know, Speaking of socialization is a lot of people love to take their dog to a brewery. You know, this is a big thing on social media to that people feel like, you know, everyone on social media is taking their dog to a brewery or cafe or something like that or on vacation with them. And I think that that not every dog loves that. So it's just important to put your dog's needs first when it comes to enrichment because you know, while it might be enriching for you to go hang out with your friends and have a beer and talk and laugh and everything. What, what I found in those situations is that, you know, you, you don't pay a lot of attention to your dog.

51:35 You take them with you, but then you're talking to your friends and then doing this and maybe people come up and say hi to your dog and maybe your dog loves it and then you should keep doing it. But if your dog doesn't love that activity, I would say, you know, put their priorities and their needs 1st and that comes to all kinds of enrichment, you know, like lick mats, snuffle mats. If if your dog doesn't like it, don't do it. You don't have to. Yeah, Oh, my dog loves her snuffle mat. The she likes the one I made better than any of the ones I've ever bought. And I think because the one I made is like really thick and has a lot of different places to hide things and.

52:15 Well, did you? Is it like you tied the Lisa? Well, also think about like your hands touched every single piece of that. So maybe that's why she likes it too. It could be, yeah. It was made with love. Many, many hours, many hours of love. I actually one year for Christmas made them for like all of my family's dogs. And I was like, wow, thinking because it was so much work. That's a lot of Netflixing it. Was a lot of Netflixing, but they're amazed. I I love them. I mean, now I have it and she. Yeah, loves it. And my cats too. My cats like it better than not that we're talking about cats, but my cats like it better than the, like, platters and things I try to get them to eat off of platters. Like I try to get my dog to eat off of. Well, she does.

53:03 I have transitioned my dog. That's another thing we really didn't talk about, like how we feed our dog. Yeah. I mean, you talked about like the scatter feeding and the the busy boxes and the. But I also am a big proponent of feeding our dogs off of flat surfaces because that's how they're, like, supposed to eat. And the, you know, bowls can actually harm their noses. And I don't know. I don't know why I keep. I'm just going to keep thinking of things to bring up if I don't end this episode. Well, there's endless things we could talk about with enrichment though. There are So where can people find you find more information on enrichment for their dogs? Because this really, truly is like a foundational piece of health for our dogs.

53:47 Yes, enrichment is just as important as taking your dog to the vet or feeding them healthy food. It's just one of those building blocks of a healthy, full life. And I know anyone listening to this show wants to give their dog the best life, so it's definitely important. So one of the easiest ways to find me and all the stuff I have is to go to torinosedogs.com/podcast and that's where you'll find my podcast Dog Enrichment with Tory Mystic. You can find that streaming everywhere on YouTube, the Spotify, whatever. And then on that page, I also have a link to my mental enrichment activity pack that has 10, I think, very original novel cognitive mental enrichment activities to do with your dog that are not just the basic stuff that come up when you Google enrichment activities.

54:34 Well, that's amazing. Thank you so much for being here, Tori. I really appreciate you and for you providing all of this information to our listeners. Hopefully we'll we'll meet up again one day soon. Maybe a super zoo. I know I've seen like I've just seen you in passing there before. My gosh. Well, you should have flagged me down. Thank you so much for having me on the show and thanks everyone for listening. And yeah, hopefully, hopefully we'll see each other actually in person. Soon, hopefully. All right guys, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you for being here. Give your pets some extra love from me and from Tori this week and I will talk to you next week. Yeah.