Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi, 

I am an Animal Care Team Lead at the Cheyenne Animal Shelter. I am working on improving our Enrichment Program and need to implement something that is easy to follow and something people will actually participate in. We have 3 main subjects in our enrichment program. 

-Playgroup: Right now we have a pretty successful playgroup program that has a great way of tracking information. 

-Daily In kennel Enrichment: This is one program we need help with. We have tried monthly calendars, weekly calendars, and just a free for all but we have found issues with all of the it. The problem that we have found is keeping new daily enrichment flowing. 

-Enrichment Plus: This is a program where we do extra enrichment (nose work, outside time, snuffle mats, etc). This program needs a better way of tracking and marking the animals who need extra enrichment and a way to track which staff is enriching which animals and when. 

Does anyone have any input? 

Thank you! 

#Behavior,TrainingandEnrichment

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Diana Kelly
Animal Care Team Lead
Cheyenne Animal Shelter
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Hi Diana,

The Collaborative for Shelter Dogs enrichment page has some ideas (accompanied by instructions for volunteers) that you may find interesting.

Also, our Maddie's University Behavior Collection about Shelter Care has a webcast about dog enrichment with some good ideas.  

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Sheila Segurson, DVM, DACVB
Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorist
Director of Shelter Solutions
Maddie's Fund
Pleasanton CA
9258608284
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I am a new behavioral coordinator at my shelter (Brown County Human Society in Indiana). I created a weekly enrichment schedule (see below). 

We use volunteers to do a lot of the labor intensive things (stuff kongs, do ants on a log but with dog treats on nylabones, and peanut butter or dog food with treats sprinkled on) and then freeze them. I tried to stick to materials we already have here. We also do additional things like surprise boxes with treats and toys for those animals that need extra enrichment (the few dogs who can't do play groups or cats who seem extra stressed and bored). If you don't have enough volunteers, you might reach out to a local school with community service program or scouts organization to see if they will come in to help as part of their service projects. 

Here's our schedule. I split each species into two groups for items we don't have enough of for everyone. Let me know if you have any questions.

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Stephanie Lenny
Behavioral Coordinator
Brown County Human Society
IN
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