(BPT) – It’s no secret that pets provide love, loyalty, and affection. This is even more apparent now that you’re spending more time at home stuck inside with them. In fact, according to the 2020 Purina Pet Ownership Survey, 94% of pet owners rely on their pets for emotional support, which is particularly important during times of uncertainty. You may be tempted to spend your time snuggling with your furry friend, but there are a lot of fun new things you can do to engage your pet mentally and physically while you are at home together. Now is a great time to integrate enrichment activities that will keep both of you healthy, happy, and engaged.
“Setting and keeping a daily pet care routine to feed and walk your pet is important in alleviating stress for your pet. But scheduling play and incorporating enrichment activities into your pet’s day can also do wonders in keeping them happy and healthy,” says Alex Johnson, senior designer & pet enrichment specialist at Purina.
Johnson shares her favorite at-home pet enrichment tips and ideas:
# 1 – Making it new
It is important to expand your pet’s world by providing opportunities for exploration. Try creating temporary indoor spaces to explore with boxes and paper bags or closing off a bedroom for a week to give your pet a space to rediscover. Hide some treats or favorite toys in the room before reopening it. Remember to keep toys in rotation to help create newness.
# 2 – Treat time is a great pet activity
While at home all day, it can become difficult to track when your pet gets a snack, so try adding a treat time to your schedule. Keep in mind, pets should get no more than 10% of their daily calories from treats. If you have kids, let them earn the reward of treating the pet that day by cleaning their room or finishing homework early.
# 3 – One-on-one time
Having everyone constantly at home together can be stressful for pets. Provide pet activities that will let them have time on their own in addition to one-on-one time with family members. Spending 15 minutes together in a quiet space with no distractions can allow you to focus on engaging and bonding with your pet.
# 4 – Exercise
When stuck inside, it’s important to find indoor pet activities to help pets burn energy. Try tug toys, laser pointer play, or playing tag or hide and seek. If you live in an apartment building, try throwing toys up or down steps in the stairwells or down hallways (if your landlord permits). If you’re spending more time watching TV, consider keeping a drawer or basket close by with some of your pet’s favorite toys, feather wands, tug-toys, balls, lasers, cat dancers, mechanical toys and stuffed animals. These toys allow you to interact with your pet from the comfort of the couch.
# 6 – Box of invisibility
Providing pets with safe spaces is a great way to give them some downtime while still being close to everyone. For example, set out a box or sign in the family room, and when the cat is in the box or the dog is in the designated area, have the whole family pretend you can’t ‘see’ them, as if they were invisible. If the rule is followed, your pet will learn they can enjoy downtime in these spaces.
# 6 – Sensory spot
If you have a cat, you know they love exploring textures and smells. Try getting a box or basket just as big as your cat loosely curled up, and place it in an out-of-the-way area, preferably near a safe heat source, vent, or sunny window. Each week, try putting in new material such as a worn T-shirt, packaging paper, or bits of textured fabric for them to explore.
To learn more about how to keep pets happy and healthy while stuck inside during quarantine, visit www.purina.com/homewithpets.
Summary
It really doesn’t matter what you do as a pet activity; just do something. Do it regularly, too. Use this post as a starter and brainstorm what you can do to bless your pet’s life. You will bless your own life in the process. And that is the beauty of pets.