OzVet

Yesterday we bought Ginger (my parent’s Brittany) a Buster Cube. (Here’s a really good picture of a Buster Cube). It’s a medium-sized plastic cube with a hole at one end. Inside the cube is a maze-like path created by projections of plastic. How it works is you (the owner) put dog food or treats inside the Buster Cube. Then the dog has to push and paw at the cube in order to remove the food.

This is great for dogs because it provides both mental stimulation and physical activity. Instead of just standing there and gulping down their food, the dog has to do a bit of work to get the food. Buster Cubes can also be really helpful if your dog usually tried to gulp down his whole bowl of food in one bite. Since only a few pieces of food come out every time the cube rolls over, the dog ends up eating much slower.

Ginger now loves her Buster Cube. However, it took her a little while to get the hang of it. My parents usually leave a bowl of food out since she does a good job of not overeating. So, I took her food up yesterday mid-morning (otherwise she wouldn’t have been interested in the Cube at all, if she still had a bowl of food out). Then, mid-afternoon, we loaded the Buster Cube full of treats and a handful of stale cheerios (This dog Loves stale cheerios!) and presented it too her. She had no idea what to do with it!

She used her tongue to get as much out of the hole as she could. However, she was then stuck. She figured out pretty quickly that she could push it around with her nose. So push it around she did! Push, push, push, all around the kitchen. Then she gave up. And sat there, head cocked, ears alert, telling me that she was stuck.

So, I helped her push it around and got some more of the food to fall out. Then, she pushed it around with her nose some more, until she got frustrated and stuck again. She couldn’t figure out that she needed to get it to turn over. Merely pushing it wasn’t enough. So, we gave up for awhile. Later, we tried again, but she still couldn’t get the hang of it. Later in the evening, my dad gave her back her bowl of food, as she was completely stumped by the Buster Cube.

Today, we did a bit of training outside and then I left her outside with the Buster Cube. She completely ignored. I kept checking back on her through the window to see what she was doing. About half an hour after I threw her outside, I saw her playing with the Buster Cube! First, she figured out that if she pushed it with her nose in the dirt, it tipped over, and that’s how the food came out. Later, I also saw her using her paw to get it to flip over to release the food. Since there are leaves all over the backyard it was an extra challenge. After the food fell out she then had to find it in the leaves. I did take a bit of video, but I don’t have the right cables for the video camera at my parent’s house. I’ll try to post some of the video this week when I get back to Kansas.

I think she kept getting stumped in the house because she wanted me to solve the puzzle for her. She’d stop, and sit there, and stare at me, as if asking me to get the darn thing to release the treats for her. Outside, she was all on her own. The thing smelled like food, and she was curious enough that she eventually solved the puzzle.

This concept of making an animal work for their food is very often used in zoos these days and is commonly called enrichment. Many zoos these days are trying to come up with creative and complex ways to feed their animals. This is beneficial because by mimicking problems animals face in the wild (having to spend time finding food), animals increase their level of physical activity, are provided with more mental stimulation and spend more time engaging in eating related activities. This is particularly important–wild animals spend much of their time foraging for food and eating. In a captive setting, they often spend much less time foraging or hunting for food, which can lead to boredom and unhappy animals.

I’ve watched the bears at a zoo play with a toy very similar to a Buster Cube. The keepers had taken a large plastic barrel, punched out a few holes in the side, filled the barrel partially with food, and then hung it from a wall so that it was several feet above the ground. In order to get the food out, the bear had to bat and swing at the barrel causing it to move and rotate. Eventually, a piece or two of food would fall out. The bear was absolutely fascinated with this toy, and I watched him play with it for quite a while.

Sure our dogs aren’t wild animals. However, by adding a bit of variety to their lives it can also help to reduce boredom and make their lives a bit more interesting.