Dog Enrichment Quotes

Yet,'said Maturin, pursuing his own thought, 'there is a quality in dogs, I must confess, rarely to be seen elsewhere and that is affection: I do not mean the violent possessive protective love for their owner but rather that mild, steady attachment to their friends that we see quite often in the best sort of dog. And when you consider the rarity of plain disinterested affection among our own kind, once we are adult, alas - when you consider how immensely it enhances daily life and how it enriches a man's past and future, so that he can look backward and forward with complacency - why, it is a pleasure to find it in brute creation.

Unfortunately, that basic sense of fairness and goodwill toward others is under threat in a society like ours that increasingly enriches the richest and abandons the rest to the vagaries of global competition. More and more our media and our school systems emphasize material success and the importance of triumphing over others both athletically and in the classroom. More and more, in an atmosphere of increased competitiveness, middle- and upper-class parents seem driven to greater and greater extremes to give their offspring whatever perceived “edge” they can find. This constant emphasis on competition drowns out the lessons of cooperation, empathy and altruism that are critical for human mental health and social cohesion.

Learn to choose your battles carefully. When you exercise discretion, you will realize that most fights are best avoided. Let those sleeping dogs sleep!

Pets enrich our lives...and poop on our floors!

Friends, like family, want you to remain unchanged, while love has the indecent capacity to transform you, to enrich you with a new take on everything you were once familiar with. The more she fell into disfavor with everyone, the more dogged my impulse to protect her from a hostile world,

There are some men who, living with the one object of enriching themselves, no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious of the baseness and rascality of the means which they will use every day towards this end, affect nevertheless—even to themselves—a high tone of moral rectitude, and shake their heads and sigh over the depravity of the world. Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth, or rather—for walking implies, at least, an erect position and the bearing of a man—that ever crawled and crept through life by its dirtiest and narrowest ways, will gravely jot down in diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular debtor and creditor account with Heaven, which shall always show a floating balance in their own favour. Whether this is a gratuitous (the only gratuitous) part of the falsehood and trickery of such men’s lives, or whether they really hope to cheat Heaven itself, and lay up treasure in the next world by the same process which has enabled them to lay up treasure in this—not to question how it is, so it is. And, doubtless, such book-keeping (like certain autobiographies which have enlightened the world) cannot fail to prove serviceable, in the one respect of sparing the recording Angel some time and labour. Ralph Nickleby was not a man of this stamp. Stern, unyielding, dogged, and impenetrable, Ralph cared for nothing in life, or beyond it, save the gratification of two passions, avarice, the first and predominant appetite of his nature, and hatred, the second.

Once you start looking, you will discover unlimited links and openers for nurturing camaraderie. Do you drive the same car? Did you attend the same college? Do you both write with your left hand? Love vacationing in Paris? Prefer sushi over pasta? Both have twins? Attend the same church? Each run marathons? Enjoy the same television shows? Have the same breed of dog? While downright basic, these shared commonalities can often bring a sense of familiarity and affection even for people whom you have never met.

When used naturally, the chase and capture/kill is relatively brief and followed by a long time relaxing, chewing and eating. When we manipulate this sequence with a ball launcher, we interrupt it and the dog gets the adrenaline rush of the chase over and over – but with no effective final chew and relax. This is why ball launchers can exacerbate hyper-arousal.

We’d found that these developmentally appropriate enrichment and therapeutic experiences had to be provided repeatedly and consistently in a respectful and caring manner.

Yet,’ said Maturin, pursuing his own thought, ‘there is a quality in dogs, I must confess, rarely to be seen elsewhere and that is affection: I do not mean the violent possessive protective love for their owner but rather that mild, steady attachment to their friends that we see quite often in the best sort of dog. And when you consider the rarity of plain disinterested affection among our own kind, once we are adult, alas – when you consider how immensely it enhances daily life and how it enriches a man’s past and future, so that he can look back and forward with complacency – why, it is a pleasure to find it in brute creation.’ Affection

...we also owe it to them to learn to understand what is enough or too much for each dog.

We need to find the good balance between occasional sniffing and being on a search on a specific mission.

...it is a fact that we keep our dogs in captivity and we are responsible for the welfare of our dogs.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie When I hear someone expressing an adamant opinion which is diametrically opposed to my own, I have a strong temptation to try to convince them otherwise. But what value is there in attempting to prove another person wrong? How would that solve anything?

Animation. Enthusiasm. Sincerity. Excitement. Acceptance. Have I just described your family dog? You’re happy to see him because he is so happy to see you. It is no wonder dogs are called “Man’s Best Friend” with attributes like that. Their natural propensity for joy makes them among the most personable and friendly creatures on the planet. Human beings could learn a thing or two from their eager and earnest approach to life.

Wyoming got an Algonquian name from Pennsylvania meaning “large prairie,” but the adoption came only after a long fight. Decades before the settling of the present state of Wyoming, its name achieved popular acclaim after an 1809 poem, “Gertrude of Wyoming,” by Thomas Campbell. The poem recalled the Iroquois defeat of a group of Tory settlers and the ensuing death of 350 of them during the chaos of the American Revolution. By the time Congress created the territory of Wyoming in 1868, ten communities in Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kansas, and Nebraska had already claimed the name. The name had grown in popularity and was proposed for the new Western territory, even though it had no historical relationship to the area, to the native people who lived there, or to the languages spoken there. One anti-Wyoming group of congressmen favored the name Cheyenne, since that name referred to the native people living there, but Congress rejected Cheyenne for fear that Europeans might confuse it with the French word chienne, meaning “female dog.” No one in the seemly Victorian era wanted a state whose name meant “bitch” (G. R. Stewart 1945).

As one shelter leader put it to me, it’s not a question of if a shelter dog will deteriorate. It’s a question of when. There’s some debate as to whether the dogs are deteriorating or, rather, displaying what is normal behavior under trying circumstances. That “normal” won't help dogs get adopted. That’s why the current thinking on remedying kennel stress is to find a dog a home pronto. In the meantime, shelters such as the ARL do what they can to relieve a dog’s duress with walks, play groups, snuggling, toy puzzles, all of which is referred to as “enrichment.” Other shelters have constructed larger, better buildings with training arenas and soundproof kennels. Rich Avanzino, of course, has the most radical answer to kennel stress: get rid of the shelters.

However, remember that a fundamental criterion of emotional and behavioral health—not to mention enrichment—is agency. Forcing a dog to receive petting or massage against their will is the opposite of giving them control over their environment and outcomes. To the educated eye, the body language and behaviors being exhibited by those dogs are not bad or defective; they are communicating discomfort and stress in healthy, appropriate ways, and those signals are being ignored by the humans. Eventually the dogs learn that nothing they do changes their outcome, so they give up and lie still. That is the very definition of learned helplessness, not counterconditioning and desensitization, much less relaxation.

The left in its worrying routinely forgets this most important secular event since the invention of agriculture—the Great Enrichment of the last two centuries—and goes on worrying and worrying, like the little dog worrying about his bone in the Travelers Insurance advertisement on TV, in a new version every half generation or so.

We want them to find fulfilment in their existence and that means meeting their higher needs of social connection and mental challenge through choice, novelty and problem solving with their family - whether those family members have two legs or four.

Having a look at the background to your specific dog's breed will therefore help you learn what they have a tendency to enjoy.

Baking is a fabulous family activity and a great way to get children involved in the lives of their dogs. Not only does it teach children about nutrition and looking after dogs, it allows them to show their love for their dog without any pressure on the dog to interact directly with them.

Training is about so much more than teaching your dog what you want them to do. It's about communication, enjoyment and strengthening the bond with your dog.

Adding enrichment to your dog's life is a good idea at any time but for more impact it can be used strategically to support contented family life. Providing different types of enrichment at different times of the day can encourage your dog to become excited and use their physical energy or can calm your dog down by using their mental energy.

Training as enrichment isn’t about the outcome, it’s about the journey. Working together, communicating and rewarding your dog are key to building a strong bond with your dog.

We can't suppress their natural behaviours; they will always find an outlet for them, whether we approve of it or not!

Let's work with our dogs rather than against them. Every dog is different and your role is to ensure that the enrichment that you are offering is right for your specific dog.