15 Easy Dog Enrichment Ideas You Can Do at Home (Vet-Approved)

Dogs need enrichment to encourage, enable, and empower them to engage in natural behaviors. Providing your pup with the right enrichment toys will not only keep them mentally and physically healthy but also reduce the risk of behavioral issues that are challenging to correct.

Dog toys can get expensive, especially if your pup is a bit rough on them. The good news is that you don’t need a lot of expensive materials or tools to make your own toys for your pet. Read on to find 15 of the easiest DIY enrichment toys you can throw together in minutes to engage your dog in the behaviors they’re destined to do.

The 15 Easy Dog Enrichment Ideas

1. DIY Dog Food Tube by Fur Life

This simple dog food puzzle toy is quick to put together with items you probably have in your recycling bin. All you need to do is take an empty shoe box and fill it with empty toilet paper or paper towel tubes. Cut down the rolls so they’re differing heights to make the puzzle more difficult for your pup. Once your tubes fit snugly in the box, drop some treats or kibble in and around the tubes. Not only will your dog love the mental stimulation they’ll get from working to get at their food, but they’ll eat slower, reducing the risk of choking or developing bloat.

2. Muffin Tin Dog Puzzle by Cheerful Hound

This quick and easy muffin tin dog puzzle utilizes things you likely already have at your disposal and doesn’t require any tools at all. It’s a great enrichment game that caters to your dog’s natural instincts to hunt and sniff while also challenging their nose and memory skills. It encourages your pup to manipulate their mouth or paws to remove the tennis balls.

Take a muffin tin and fill each hole with high-value rewards. Then, top each hole with a tennis ball. Put the tin on the floor and encourage your dog to explore it. If they’ve never played this game before, remove one ball to show them the reward waiting for them underneath.

3. Food Puzzle Wand by The Nerds Wife

This food puzzle wand toy is a quick and easy project that allows your dog to challenge their brain. To make this DIY, you’ll need to hit up your local hardware store’s plumbing section. You’ll create a “wand” from PVC piping, with a cap on one end and a threaded cap for the other. Using your drill bit, drill holes big enough for your dog’s food to escape from down the length of the wand. Put the cap on one end of the pipe, fill it with your pup’s food, and shut the open end with the threaded cap. Your dog will need to use their brain to maneuver the toy around to get the food to fall out. As the wand gets emptier and emptier, they’ll need to think of innovative ways to manipulate the pipe to get the last few pieces out.

4. Treat Towel by Paws in the City

If you don’t have a lot of time or energy to put toward making a complicated enrichment toy, this treat towel is a great option that takes quite literally seconds. Lay a towel flat on the floor and put treats on top of it. Roll it into a skinny log shape and allow your dog to sniff out what you have hidden. They’ll need to use their brain to figure out how to get at their treats and will love sniffing them out and using their paws or noses to unwrap the towel. This activity caters to your dog’s scenting skills and is a great way to boost their physical activity, too.

5. Snuffle Mat by Dream a Little Bigger

If you have a little more time on your hands and like a bit more of a challenge, this snuffle mat is a fantastic enrichment toy you can put together in an afternoon. Snuffle mats offer a lot of benefits to dogs, including providing mental stimulation, preventing speed eating, burning energy, and stimulating their sense of smell.

A non-skid sink mat is a fantastic base for a DIY snuffle mat, as they’re sturdy and won’t slide around as easily on your floor. Gather your fleece and cut the fabric into six to seven-inch long by one-inch-wide strips. Tie each strip onto the sink mat with an overhand knot. Make sure they’re pulled tightly to keep them in place. Once the mat is entirely covered, drop treats into the fabric and allow your dog to sniff them out.

6. Dig Box by Dogs Trust

Digging is a natural behavior for dogs. It’s a mentally and physically stimulating activity that they sometimes turn to when they’re bored or anxious. However, digging can also be completely destructive, so it’s important to address the behavior with training or meet your dog halfway by DIYing a dig box.

This dig box is a mess-free project you can throw together in minutes. Scrunch up scrap paper and put it inside a cardboard box. Once the box is full, sprinkle some of your pup’s favorite treats inside. Put the lid back on the box and give it a good shake to disperse the treats. Encourage them to dig through the box to find the rewards hidden inside.

7. Lick Mat by Ruffle Snuffle

Lick mats are a fantastic, stimulating activity for dogs. They can be stress relieving and a challenge for your pup physically and mentally. They also encourage slower eating, which is great if your dog is prone to scarfing down their meals.

To create a cheap lick mat, take a silicone baking sheet and flip it over so the pyramids are on the underside and you can see the holes on the bottom. Stir your dog-friendly peanut butter and spread it onto the mat, filling some of the holes as you go.

8. Spin the Bottle by Kids Activities Blog

Dogs need a lot of mental stimulation as it reduces their stress and builds their confidence. Toys that encourage them to use their brains to solve puzzles are great for this, and this project is a fantastic way to boost your pup’s brain health.

This spin-the-bottle enrichment activity is a moderately difficult project, as you’ll need some experience with power tools. You’ll need to create a frame using 1x4s and a saw. Once your frame is cut and assembled, you’ll run your dowel rod through the plastic bottles and the top of the frame. Fill the bottles with treats, and encourage your dog to spin them so the treats fall out.

9. Kibble Bottle Toy by Kol’s Notes

Here’s another great project for challenging your dog mentally. They’ll need to use their brain to figure out how to get the treats out from arouund the ball.

The best part is making your own kibble-dispense bottle toy couldn’t be easier. Remove the cap from a wide-mouth water bottle, and compress the foam balls enough that they fit through the hole. Fill the bottle with kibble or treats, and give it a good shake so the treats are above and below the ball. Give it to your dog and encourage them to move the bottle around to dispense the rewards inside. Up the challenge level by putting in more than one ball or using a slightly larger one.

10. Fruit Food Puzzle by Oh My Dog

Pet toys are notorious for their wear and tear of plastics. If you want to reduce your plastic consumption, creating an enrichment toy from perishables is a great place to start. An apple food puzzle is a tasty, healthy, and enriching activity you can put together in minutes. To make one, core your apple and stuff it with a filling of your choice. Try something like dog-friendly peanut butter or cheese. You can even use your dog’s food if it’s wet and not kibble. Give your dog the apple and watch them lick and bite at it to get at the filling inside.

You must monitor your dog with any toy you give them, but it’s especially essential to keep a close eye on them if you give them a full apple. Supervision is necessary to ensure safety.

11. Rope Ball Surprise by Hands Occupied

If your dog loves their KONG, but you want to give DIYing your own a shot, this rope ball surprise is a great pick. It’s a moderately difficult project only because you have to tie a monkey’s fist knot, which can be challenging if you’re not a knot expert. However, there are many video tutorials available to help you tackle it. Before you finalize your knot, you’ll want to slip in a dog treat. Trim off any excess rope before giving it to your pup.

12. Crinkle Bottle Toy by Ammo the Dachshund

Save your plastic bottles from the recycling bin and make this fun, crinkly enrichment toy for your pup. Crinkly toys are a favorite for many dogs as the noise they make may stimulate their hunting instincts and appeal to their senses.

Begin this project by cutting three to four one-inch-wide strips of scrap fabric you may have left over in your craft room. Wrap a large piece of cloth around your bottle as if you were wrapping a burrito, tucking in the excess before you reach the last bit of fabric. Take your one-inch-wide strips and tie them around your bottle tightly to secure the fabric to the bottle. Cut the excess fabric by the cap into two-inch wide strips and braid them.

13. Tennis Ball Surprise by Ipauper

If your dog loves playing with tennis balls, switch things up a bit with this super simple tennis ball surprise puzzle enrichment toy. First, you’ll need a knife to cut the ball. The exact cut you make will depend on the difficulty level you’re looking to challenge your pup with. Cutting along the seam allows you to tuck in the flap for a challenging toy, while cross cuts typically only require one or two chews before releasing the treats. Next, put your pup’s favorite treats inside the ball and give it to them. They’ll need to use their brains to figure out how to dispense the surprise inside.

14. Fishing Rod by Jeff Audio

Cats are notorious for liking wand-style toys, but dogs aren’t immune to the call of a fun wand toy. In fact, if your dog has never played with such a toy before, this can be a fantastic way to challenge them mentally and physically.

This fishing rod toy does require some experience with power tools, but it isn’t too advanced for most folks. You’ll need to drill a small hole at one end of your PVC piping and tie a knot with your nylon paracord through the hole. Attach a toy to the end of the rope and entice your dog to play by dragging it across the floor.

15. Indoor Obstacle Course by Lilies, Love, and Luna

The best thing about making an indoor obstacle course for your dog is that there are no rules. You can use whatever materials you have on hand to create the course for your pup. This tutorial provides some great ideas using the materials listed above, but feel free to get creative with what you have available to you.

Think about some of the most common obstacles and activities seen in dog agility shows, like tunnels, hurdles, army crawling, weaving, and stair climbing. Use your dining room chairs and a blanket to create a tunnel, or use a laundry basket or baby gate as hurdles. Encourage your dog to army crawl by placing treats underneath a coffee table or chairs.

Are There Different Types of Enrichment Toys for Dogs?

There are many different types of enrichment toys for dogs, each catering to your dog’s mind, body, or both.

Final Thoughts

Enrichment toys are an absolute must, as they can reduce stress, boost physical activity, and provide mental stimulation. Dogs without access to proper enrichment activities can become bored, which may mean they turn to destructive activities and behaviors to keep themselves entertained.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to making your own enrichment toys. The 15 DIYs above are easy and cheap, plus your dog won’t know the difference between a $50 toy from the store and one you’ve made from scratch with love. Just be sure to supervise your pup when they use any of these toys and ingesting the materials that they are made from can be dangerous.

Featured Image Credit: Jus_Ol, Shutterstock