Enrichment is vital to providing an animal with the best quality of life, separating surviving from thriving, making enrichment one of the most important things when caring for an animal. Using enrichment to promote thriving and not surviving is key to success when owning and keeping animals. There are many types of enrichment but they’re all separated into two groups: passive enrichment and active enrichment.
Active enrichment
A form of active enrichment requires the animal to act a physical movement or reaction to benefit from the enrichment, this is a great form of enrichment to urge and allow the animal to exhibit natural behaviours.
Cognitive enrichment
Providing the animal with the challenge to solve puzzles or problems to receive a reward of some kind or an enrichment where positive reinforcement is needed such as a food item as a reward or a training cue such as a click or whistle due to the animal may need to spend certain amounts of time solving cognitive enrichment. Training may be necessary as the animal might need help figuring out what behaviour to exhibit in order to receive positive reinforcement, meaning motivation might be the key in some cases. For example, teaching dogs a behaviour such as lying down may be hard without the dogs knowing without positive reinforcement without treats would be difficult.
Social enrichment
Mixing social groups in an enclosure, either the same species or different species of animal. This is critical for naturally social animals such as rats and dolphins; it can also benefit naturally solitary animals such as big cats, however, precautions must be taken to assure they get along and are introduced properly. This should only be done by qualified animal facilities and is not recommended to a usual pet owner.
Olfactory enrichment
Also known as scent enrichment, that requires the animal's sense of smell to receive a response. This is most likely the easiest enrichment to be achieved and therefore can easily be done. Examples can be bedding from another animal or even perfume, assuming it is safe for your animal, and more.
Inanimate Tactile Enrichment
An inanimate object, something not living, such as perches, rocks, dig boxes or even food that the animal has to manipulate and interact with. Animals are designed and have adapted to act certain behaviours in the wild, that’s why we should encourage our animals to exhibit these behaviours because, without them, stereotypical, unnatural and stress behaviours may be shown. For instance, without providing a hamsters needs, the hamster may start showing bar biting or climbing behaviours. Other tactile enrichment such as hanging platforms, balls or even scatter feeding can be beneficial to the animal too.
Human-Interaction enrichment
Animals interacting with humans is one of the easiest and simple enrichments to provide when done safely and responsibly. This can be done to build trust with an animal to prevent aggression while feeding an animal in a group session. Interacting with your pet when they’re showing unnatural behaviours can be helpful in the long run.
Passive Enrichment
Providing an animal with sensory enrichment; no direct contact or control.
Visual enrichment
Giving the animal to look at such as changing the layout of the enclosure, adding backgrounds and pictures to stimulate their natural habitat or connecting more than one enclosure together. Even using mirrors and television can be great for animals such as birds and cetaceans. However, I wouldn’t recommend using mirrors for solitary animals unless it’s done by qualified animal facilities.
Auditory enrichment
Using sounds from an animal's natural environment is full of all sorts of sounds including weather such as rain or thunder, the sounds of birds, crickets and so much more which is a great use of enrichment and adds more of a natural life to that animal. A common auditory enrichment is music as it provides both the animal and the animal’s staff/owner with entertainment too. You might also find that some animals prefer other music to others by reading their behaviours and body language.
Oftentimes, these enrichment groups are combined into a single device or activity.
It is crucial to the psychological welfare of an animal is well provided and maintained for a thriving animal. Sometimes, a larger enclosure may be required for the right or more enrichment. Oftentimes, these enrichment groups are combined into a single device or activity.
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