Jazer's Puppy Enrichment Rug

This video was shared with me via a friend, Patty Aguirre, who's puppy Jazer (pronounced Jay-zer) has just become an adolescent at 6 months old.  Young puppies need lots of enrichment opportunities that are designed to help them learn to use their senses to explore the environment.  Although the types of enrichment activities may change, enrichment opportunities need to be continued into adolescence in controlled environments that are safe.  Often puppies and adolescents do tons of behaviors we do not necessarily love; chewing, biting/nipping, barking, jumping, etc.  Patty is training Jazer to be a Service Dog to assist her in daily activities and has been providing various types of enrichment since the day he came home.

Puppy loves to chew up carpet. He doesn’t get to eat the rug in the living room. So I got him one of his own to destroy. He got to keep it for the weekend & until today. This one made a big mess. Jazer had a ball until his daddy threw his rug away today. But look what fun Jazer had.

This is the same concept of giving a dog one area of the yard for approved digging to prevent them from digging up the whole yard. Or for teaching your dog to potty in one section instead of all over the yard. Doing this allows your dog to take care of their actual "doggie" needs and in no way teaches them that it's OK to do this to all rugs. If we want our dogs to be successful in our "people world" we have to take care of their basic canine needs as well!