Field Guide · Glossary
Foraging
EnrichmentSearching for food rather than being handed it.
How it works
It is the behavior a snuffle mat, a scattered handful and a hidden treat all produce, and it works through the nose, which is the sense a dog gathers most of their information with. For the same quantity of food, foraging takes far longer than eating from a bowl, and the searching is the part that occupies the dog rather than the eating. It needs no equipment at all: a handful of kibble thrown into grass is foraging. Difficulty is set by the surface rather than by the food, so the same handful is trivial on a kitchen floor and a long job in long grass or deep pile.
What it looks like
Instead of a bowl, a dog's breakfast is scattered across a patch of lawn. What would have taken forty seconds takes fifteen minutes, nearly all of it spent nose-down and moving slowly across the same few square yards.
Commonly confused with
- Scatter feeding
- Scatter feeding is one method of producing foraging, by throwing food across a surface. Foraging is the behavior itself, which a puzzle or a hidden treat produces just as well.
Related terms
Where this comes up
Gear that helps
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Snuffle mat
Hides kibble in the fabric so a dog sniffs it out, and sniffing is genuinely calming. Our go-to for a dog who needs a job on a rainy day.
Snuffle ball
A rolling snuffle toy a dog noses around to shake kibble loose. More movement than a flat mat, good for dogs who like to chase their food.
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