Enriching Your Pet's Life

Have you ever seen an octopus wrapped in a children's toy?

Thanks to the masterminds at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, now you have.

And this is more than the subject of an awesome picture; it's also good for the octopus.

And it gets me thinking about what we can all do, thinking outside the box, for our pets cooped up at home.

This weekend my new husband and I battled the humidity to visit the zoo, where we have a membership, to get some exercise and visit our wild two-, four- and eight-legged friends.

As a pet owner, I also like to pay attention to the “out-of-place” items that curators, keepers and veterinarians place in the animals' enclosures to address their social, psychological and physical needs. 

I feel particularly interested in this topic since I read “Thought to Exist in the Wild” by Derrick Jensen. (Excerpt: “I'm not sure how watching an insane bear or a drowsy lion or a tiger who paces and paces on concrete is more exciting than seeing wild creatures flying, hopping, crawling: doing what wild creatures do.)

Jensen calls such enrichment efforts artificial and insufficient. He adamantly opposes keeping animals in zoos at all, partly because of the inhumanity and unfairness but also because gazing at depressed and unwilling wild animals behind wire or Plexiglass is "pornographic."

Jensen is very persuasive, but I'm still not entirely convinced that good zoos — obviously not the ones pictured in his book — don't serve a useful purpose. (Full disclosure: I work for Geauga Park District and believe wholeheartedly in face-to-face nature education. I also believe in Cleveland Metroparks' mission, and in its efforts to enrich the animals' experience by providing more novelty in foods, smells, movable perching, boxes, bags and other toys.)

For instance, this year's new Elephant Crossing is a must-see for anyone who found the old elephant enclosure depressing – and who didn't? The four pachyderms also get three sessions a day with keepers, when they are made to solve problems and communicate via voice commands and even painting.

Other examples: papier mache zebras stuffed with ground meat for lions, giant street-sweeping brushes for elephants to scratch against, and — as we witnessed this weekend — cardboard that can be torn off in long strips by a baboon, much as he would bark or leaves somewhere in Africa.

I swear I saw a bit of joy in that octopus' beady eyes when he was playing with that toy. Maybe he shouldn't be in a zoo for the selfish purpose of educating me — but this weekend, I was grateful he is.

OK, enough of that. But as I watched the animals interact with swings and toys and cardboard, I also mentally scoured the catalogue of cat toys in our bedroom, and what I offer as enrichment back home. Sometimes I gently close the bedroom door and call “Sister!” or “Muppet!” and make the cats figure out how to open it. (Sister is much better at this; in contrast, Muppet's pathetic at it.) Or I'll toss the treat so it slides on the kitchen floor...

Wiped out after the zoo, I reclined in our air-conditioned bedroom and petted Sister until my eyes wanted to close. She immediately tickled me with her whiskers like she does in the morning, licking and nibbling the tip of my nose.

I'd had a full day, but what had she done? She wanted to play! And imagining her being alone in a one-bedroom house on a humid Saturday, I couldn't blame her.

I think it's time to start an enrichment program for the girls: to quit kicking their toys under the bed, and instead bring out the laundry basket to play with Sister through the holes. To engage Muppet's eagerness to roughhouse on my desk chair. To hide their treats inside of toys and household objects.

Just think, wild dogs spend about 80 percent of their time foraging and hunting; many domestic dogs were also bred to work alongside humans. It's no wonder they're so bored or full of excess energy during our work weeks.

Here are some suggestions for in-home enrichment programs, some independent and some involving us humans.

For dogs: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals writes on dog food puzzle toys, “hunting for dinner,” tug-of-war, hide and seek and more: (http://www.aspcabehavior.org/articles/65/Enriching-Your-Dogs-Life.aspx)

For cats: Cat International writes on safe and unsafe cat toys, proper uses for catnip and “play therapy”: (http://www.catsinternational.org/articles/fun_for_cats/index.html)

For birds: AvianEnrichment.com provides guidelines for birds' physical, emotional and instinctual needs, such as providing a variety of toys and rotating them weekly (http://www.avianenrichment.com/)

Willoughby Animal Hospital also reminds us that toys should not fit into a pet's mouth; tennis balls, for example, are a choking hazard for larger dogs.

"You have to be the most fun thing in your dog's life, and if you are, they'll do anything for you," said Elizabeth Richards, co-owner of Digging Dogs Training Center in Mentor.

But when we can't be around all the time — and who of us can? — at least make sure your pet doesn't feel like a caged animal in his or her own home.