Dog Yard Enrichment- Haytime and Diggin'
This weekend I bought some hay from the good people at Glenrock Farm- they have Scottish Belties (cows that are all black front and back thirds, and with a wide white belt around the middle third.) Eight bales in/on the Subaru- I had to take out the goalie sticks for this, Joe.
We put them out back between the lookout rock and a tree- the tree buttresses them so when the dogs jump up and ram around the hay tower doesnt topple. Sage is very excited to play with Rei ON the hay.
Sage likes to be up high, so he sits up there and watches the woods. The leaves are drying up and getting smaller before they fall, so he can see more and more.
He is three bales up, and runs up the rock and onto the haytop. Cool fun for a dog that eschews the "places to go, dogs to see" life.
In the in front of the canoe is the Dog Beach, a sandy dig area. to the right is the kiddie pool and a stone wall full of chipmunks. The gravel is a trial "warning track" to see if it keeps the mud down- our plan going forward is to gravel up out to the rock and place stones around. Its too shady for grass to get going. To the left is the sunny grassy part of the fenced yard where we chuckit and the dogs wrestle.
Grassy part- good for lounging, when not wrestling.
finally, a short video of dig pit/chipmunk hunting. Look at those tails go!
Reilly got the chipmunk in the end.
We put them out back between the lookout rock and a tree- the tree buttresses them so when the dogs jump up and ram around the hay tower doesnt topple. Sage is very excited to play with Rei ON the hay.
Sage likes to be up high, so he sits up there and watches the woods. The leaves are drying up and getting smaller before they fall, so he can see more and more.
He is three bales up, and runs up the rock and onto the haytop. Cool fun for a dog that eschews the "places to go, dogs to see" life.
In the in front of the canoe is the Dog Beach, a sandy dig area. to the right is the kiddie pool and a stone wall full of chipmunks. The gravel is a trial "warning track" to see if it keeps the mud down- our plan going forward is to gravel up out to the rock and place stones around. Its too shady for grass to get going. To the left is the sunny grassy part of the fenced yard where we chuckit and the dogs wrestle.
Grassy part- good for lounging, when not wrestling.
finally, a short video of dig pit/chipmunk hunting. Look at those tails go!
Reilly got the chipmunk in the end.
Comments
Take out the goalie sticks, lol. It looks like you had to take out the whole interior. Are you still finding pieces of hay in your car?
Bella and Nola are incredibly jealous.
I still had hay stems in the car from the last time I bought hay. It sticks to the upholstery, even though I put down blankets. The old army blankets shed hay better than the softer blankets- note to self for next time. The hay smells sweet and I love it.
If you put the seats down in back you can fit 6 hay bales in a subaru forester. If you dont mind hay riding shotgun, you can fit 7, but I think its too hard to see, so I put 7 and 8 on the roof. Other things I learned: keep the windows UP- the wind blew hay all over the front seat and I had little clumps of it in the corners of the windshield, on the floor, and in the doorhandles by the time I got home.
Jeff calls my car the Crudmobile.
That looks like so much fun, we were thinking about putting obstacles and such in the bag garden for Ti to play with/on when he's finished but I'm concerned about him being high enough to jump the fence so we may have to figure something lower to the ground
Sage and Reilly look like they appreciate it a lot!
Both Sage and Reilly looks like they love it.
That's just...that's awesome. I'm so glad there are people like you in the world to love dogs like *that* (and inspire me to not be afraid of my title as the crazy dog lady lol).
You have such a happy pack. ^_^ I love how you've learned them and provide for them in the way they are happiest with as individuals.
Its hard to feel sure when you have a dog that goes against a lot of what They Say about ideal dogkeeping, but I have had good support from wise people to counter my doubts. Its like how you shouldn't force your kids to play baseball ("organized sports teach kids leadership and teamwork and how to work hard") if they are the kind who love to play unstructured pretend stuff in the yard, or stay home and draw. You lay off the "joining" and "signing up for" and you make sure they have stuff to build forts and art materials, and join in yourself. Everyone need not be a team player or a leader or a crank it out worker.
like Jessica Rabbit reminds me when I get crazy: "Embrace, don't "fix" who he is."
Today Sage is staying home with Jeff while he does job hunting stuff, and I am taking Reilly out to go swimming with our Labrador and spaniel friends.
Hay-bales work really nice for the dogs, they are soft enough for them to lay on but sturdy enough for them to climb on. My only complaint is that the boys LOVE to mark them.... and that gets kinda gross.
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I love going to the newer zoos and looking at the environments and enrichment they build for the bigger animals and seeing what I can co-opt for my Stay at home boy. I think rotation is good, which is the advantage hay bales have over a more permanent structure- you can move them around and build different shapes easily. Snow is also good for this- we roll large snowballs and dig tunnels when we have enough snow. We can also hide the dinner kongs in the hay a bit when we do Puzzle Dinner. And hay and snow are cheap!
We have a back deck and they use that for fun as well- Reilly will begin "stalking" on the deck when Sage is in the grass, thrashing his tail and bowing. She lowers her head and at some invisible signal they both tear off in a chase. Sage flies around the yard and runs under the deck and out the other side, but Rei will try to catch him at the exit, rather than follow. Sometimes he changes direction under there. Its really fun for them. If we lose a ball under the deck, Sage will pull up and not go get it, but I can send Reilly in to Find It, and she will crawl and return with it. They are so different, but complementary.
When we have money someday, I want to get my hands on some larger stones, or perhaps cast some concrete shapes in the now largely muddy part of the yard, then gravel around them. The mud is no good and the dogs dont go back there if its slimy. If I gravel it, and put interesting stones there, it will be more fun for them, and nice to look at, like the Japanese zen rock garden at the museum, except that dogs are allowed in
We built a table to go out in the outer area this past weekend, so now the dogs have another platform to chill on. My hope was that it would coax a few of the dogs away from the house and into that area... so far it has worked a little. I think they will be out in that area all the time once the snow comes.
To me, the dogs are like fish. If you get a bunch of fish and put them in a fish tank with no rocks or anything, just glass walls and a glass floor, the fish will cling to each other in the middle towards the bottom. When you add a rock to it (a rock, not gravel), all of the fish linger around the rock, and some fight over it. Add another rock and they split up, and fight less. Add a bunch of rocks and they each pick their own little spot to chill and there is little fighting.
Dogs are just like that. we try to give them as many "stations" as possible so they can choose which one they want to chill at for the day. The dogs that like being outside most of the day will pick a "station" in the AM and just kinda loiter around that spot all day. Even if the back door is open, they prefer their "station" outside.
At one point our dogs became quarrelsome, and so we added on the newer larger area to our yard. They rarely go out there, and still chill in the same spots as before, but they are way less quarrelsome. Kinda silly, huh?
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