Enrichment for the Real World

#116 - Try It: Budget-Friendly Enrichment from Everyday Items

• Pet Harmony Animal Behavior and Training • Season 10 • Episode 116

Share episode

When it comes to enrichment, we often think we need fancy tools, expensive toys, or complicated activities—but what if the best enrichment was sitting in your recycling bin? In this episode of Enrichment for the Real World, Emily Strong (she/they) shares how you can use everyday household items—yes, even your trash—to bring joy, engagement, and behavioral diversity into your pet’s life.

You'll learn why pets might ignore new enrichment items at first (hint: it’s not personal!), how to safely experiment with new objects, and why a little patience and creativity go a long way. Emily offers practical tips for encouraging interaction, assessing risk, and making adjustments as needed, all while sharing real-life examples of budget enrichment in action. Whether you're just getting started or looking to spice things up, this episode reminds us to be curious, flexible, and open to futzing around and finding out.

TLDL (Too Long, Didn’t Listen): 3 Key Takeaways
It’s all about the nuggets of wisdom. Here are the quick hits from this episode that will leave listeners feeling empowered and inspired.

🧩 Don’t Give Up Too Easily – Pets may not immediately take to a new item or activity—and that’s okay! Sometimes, a little guidance or tweaking can turn a flop into a favorite.

🎲 Futz Around and Find Out – Safe experimentation can be your best enrichment strategy. Give your pet something new (and safe) and see what they think—it just might become a hit!

🐾 Ask Your Pet – Ultimately, enrichment is about their experience. Observe their response and let that guide what you do next.


Links & Resources from the Episode


Going Down a Rabbit Hole?
Let your audience dive deeper into the world of enrichment, behavior, and building harmony.


More from Pet Harmony
We’ve got a lot more to share—join the conversation!

Follow us on social media:
For all things enrichment, behavior modification, and building harmony with your pet:
Instagram: @petharmonytraining
Facebook: @petharmonytraining

For professionals dedicated to enriching the lives of pets and people alike:
Instagram: @petharmonypro
TikTok: @petharmonypro
Sign up for our weekly newsletter: https://petharmonytraining.com/join/

Hey, fellow pet professional! Tired of reinventing the wheel with every training plan? Join our 15-Minute Training Plan Challenge to create a flexible, repeatable template that works for you and your clients. No more blank screens or writer's block, just effective plans in less time. 

Join now: petharmonytraining.com/trainingplan

[00:00:00] Emily: My big message to everybody is don't give up too easily. There are many ways that you can encourage an animal to play with something that they may have never. I played with before. Remember that if this is the first time that you are giving a piece of trash to an individual learner they may not clock it as something that is a foraging opportunity or a play opportunity or shredding or nesting materials or whatever they're doing with it, right?A digging, a digging opportunity. If, if it's new to them, they don't have a, a frame of reference for what they're supposed to do with it. So just because you hand them something and they don't use it doesn't mean that they don't like it. It probably means that they just don't know what it is and what you're expecting them to do with it. 

[00:00:41] Allie: Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:00:59] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:00] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:01:21] Emily: All right, so in this episode we're gonna talk about how to use trash in your enrichment plan. One of the things I talk about a lot in Pet Pro is how I spent the majority of my career and my adult life pro bono myself into poverty. For all the reasons that so many of us in this industry do that I have since learned better and now I do better, but the upside to spending a couple of decades in situational poverty is that I got very enterprising with how to meet the needs of the many, many animals in my care across many, many species for little to no money. And one of the biggest ways that I was able to do that was by using my own trash to provide enrichment opportunities.

So you can do this in one of two ways. The first way I like to lovingly call futz around and find out by which, I mean you've got a piece of trash, whether that's a cardboard box or a paper towel roll, or I don't know. Paper towels that are kind of used but not really, like, you don't really feel awesome about throwing them in the compost because they're still mostly okay, but also like you did wipe up a little bit of tea on it or some with it or something. That kind of stuff. Whatever trash you have throw it in front of your animal, and see if they play with it. I do that a lot when I'm just hanging out. And I'm not really trying to, put my thinking cap on, or develop a complex enrichment plan for the animal. I'm just like, Hey, how do you feel about this cardboard box?

Throw it on the floor and watch them and see what happens, right? 

The second way is a little more thoughtful than the first way. And that is to learn about the species typical behaviors of the animals in your care, and then observe which of those be behaviors the individual in front of you engages in.

And then identify what kind of trash would give them the ability to do those behaviors or what toys you can make out of trash to enable them to do those behaviors that they're already doing, presumably in ways that you either don't want them to do, or in ways that they can't always do. Like they can maybe do it outside, but on a rainy day, you need a way to keep them entertained inside, or, they do it only when certain people are around.

I don't know. I don't know all the reasons that contextually an animal will do something and you wanna give them another context to do it in. There's lots of those. So, yeah, you're basically like looking for ways to empower them to do the things that they're already doing in context that would be more convenient and helpful and not destructive.

So I typically do that when either, I am working with a new species and I'm like, I don't know what you play with Mongoose. I, I, I, I'm new to Mongo Geese, mongo Mongooses, I'm not sure what the plural of mongoose is, but this client hired me to help them with their mongoose. So, let's learn about your species typical behavior, and let's watch you and let's see what kind of stuff you do, and then let's see if there's a way to use trash to let you do that stuff in a way that's safe and also great for everybody. 

The other reason I'll do that is if I'm, I've at an impasse with an animal like, we've tried a lot of different things and we're missing something, and I'm not sure what it is that we're missing. Or we have challenges where the resources I would typically recommend aren't an option in this case for whatever reason, then I'm more methodical and thorough about, okay, well let's actually do the, an enrichment plan, like for really reels. And, and let's think about what this animal's doing and why they're doing it, and how we can allow them to do it in, in ways that work for everybody.

Um, So either way, whether you're just like, Hey, here's a cardboard box, do you like it? Or if you're like, let's make a plan based on the ethology of this animal either way that's where you start is what are we gonna do with this trash? How does this trash actually help this animal? 

So for example, if we have a species that likes to shred things like many parrot species, will they shred a cardboard box? Will they shred paper towels? Will they shred corn husks after I've just made roasted corn? So, so that's the kind of that's an example. 

For dogs, it can look like, okay, y'all are opportunistic scavengers, so you're gonna find food wherever I put it. So can I make like a Russian, Russian nesting doll of cardboard boxes and hide food in between all the layers of the boxes? Will that work for you? How, how does that, how do you feel about that? 

Then the next step is to do a risk assessment. And if you are not sure how to do a risk assessment, we actually made an entire podcast episode about that, which will be linked in the show notes.

But essentially we wanna make sure that we're being reasonably safe, reasonably reducing the risk of harm, without wrapping this animal in bubble wrap and being overly cautious and to the point of, of being too restrictive. 

The biggest risk with trash is usually ingesting things they shouldn't. So usually I'm gonna watch an animal and be like, are you just shredding the cardboard, or are you eating the cardboard? 

There's like these little bits of adhesive that are on toilet paper rolls and paper towel rules. I'm gonna take those off because I don't want the dogs, or the parrots, or the cats, to accidentally ingest adhesive material that would not go well for anybody.

It is so highly individualized because what is really risky for one individual is not gonna be risky at all for another. So, I can't tell you which trash is safe, and which trash isn't, because that really, really, really, really depends on the individual animal.

So, you have to do a risk assessment for the animal in front of you, and that usually involves just observing the heck out of them, and paying attention, not just just to them, but to their environment. 

The next step is to make the thing, sometimes making the thing looks like, as I've said before, tossing a cardboard box on the floor and being like, Hey, if I present this thing to you, what are you gonna do with it? Let's be real. That's usually what it looks like in my household, because as I have said many times on this podcast, I am a lazy trainer, so I'm like, if I can just give you trash just without changing it at all, is that good enough for you? And if my animals are like, yeah, then I'm like, cool, we both win. 

But sometimes it involves making a thing. So like the Russian nesting doll of boxes example, you have to put the food, in paper towels or, wrap it in corn husk. I don't know why I keep talking about corn husks, I think it's because I recently roasted a bunch of corn and I had a bunch of corn husks. You can tell what my trash has been recently because my availability here at stick is like paper towels, and corn husks, y'all.

But yeah, so you have to wrap the food in whatever object you're wrapping it in and, and stick it between layers of boxes. So there's some element of preparation. 

For birds, a lot of times I'll get wax free paper cups and I'll put a couple pieces of their cage mix in the wax free paper cups and ball that up and then like shove a needle through it and thread some needle through it and stack them all together. It takes five minutes of preparation to make that toy.

So, sometimes you can just throw the trash on the floor and be like, have at it, and other times you have to do stuff to the trash to make it more useful. The next step is give them the thing and have at it, friends. Like watch how they interact with the trash that you've just given them, and we'll talk more about what happens when they do nothing with it. We'll talk about that in a minute. But the next step is to observe the first few times that they play with the thing. 

So we've made our risk assessment. We can be reasonably sure that this dog is not going to eat cardboard because this dog has no history of eating cardboard, but if this is the first time that the dog has had Russian nesting doll doll of of cardboard boxes with food in it. If this paper towel has, OA pizza on it then we wanna watch and make sure that the dog's not gonna try to eat it, because now this trash is related to food, So, we have to observe them, for the first few times that they're doing the thing. 

And then the last step is adjust accordingly. So, I have worked with dogs where I'm like, Ooh, we can't do the rushing nesting doll things because you're conflating cardboard with food now and you think the whole thing is edible, when in fact the only thing that was supposed to be edible was the food between the cardboard boxes, so this particular permutation of this game is not it for you. However, if I just give you a stack of flat cardboard boxes. You have a grand old time slipping around on them, and tearing them up, and, and running around, and shaking them violently, and that's cool because that's actually less effort and also it's safer for you. We adjust our plan based on observing the outcomes of our attempts. As always, that's just fundamental to an enrichment framework approach. 

Okay, so let's go back and talk about when you give them the thing and you watch them because this is where a lot of people get tripped up and that usually looks like, well, they didn't like it, they didn't, they didn't use it. They're not interested in it. And my big message to everybody is don't give up too easily. There are many ways that you can encourage an animal to play with something that they may have never. I played with before. Remember that if this is the first time that you are giving a piece of trash to an individual learner they may not clock it as something that is a foraging opportunity or a play opportunity or shredding or nesting materials or whatever they're doing with it. If, if it's new to them, they don't have a, a frame of reference for what they're supposed to do with it. So, just because you hand them something, and they don't use it doesn't mean that they don't like it. It probably means that they just don't know what it is and what you're expecting them to do with it.

And there are several different ways that we can adjust our, our attempts to try to help them figure out what it is that they're supposed to do with this object. 

So, the first one is play with it with them. If I'm gonna give an animal, I used to do this a lot with our like hoarding case dogs, and our puppy mill dogs, who had no idea how to do anything, except just exist in fear.

So like they, I would, give them something and they would look at it like, what do you want me to do with this? What, why is this here? Like, okay, there's something in this space, cool story, bro. And so, what I would do is I would play with them. I would pretend to bite it, I would tear it a little bit, I would offer it to them and maybe shake it in front of their face to try to encourage them to sort of like grab at it with their mouths. So, you can play with them either by like, doing the thing that you want them to do, depending on the species, some species are better at observational learning than others.

Another thing is to make it more like nature, so, with the shredding thing with when I was when I co-ran Austin Parrot Society we would get a lot of birds in who had never had toys, had no idea how to play, and if you offered them just a toy, they wouldn't really know what to do with it.

But if we hung pieces of cardboard from the top of their cage and made like a little oscillating fan near the cage, rust, the, the leaves that we made out of cardboard or empty paper cups or whatever, the bird would be like, whoa, rustling leaves. And they would go over and investigate it. 

Another thing you can do is make it more enticing. So, yeah, a dog may not be stoked about doing Russian nesting doll of cardboard boxes with their kibble, but if you put in pieces of cheese and ham, then suddenly it might be a lot more exciting to dig at those boxes to get at that food if it's really stinky and high value, so you can make it more enticing.

Another thing to consider is to try the thing when their motivation to do it is at its peak. So for example, if I am trying to get a dog to forge for the first time using trash, I'm not going to set that up for them immediately after they've just eaten a meal. I'm going to set that up for them right before their next meal so that they are hungry, but not so hungry that they're desperate, right?

So I'm not going to deprive them of food to make them want this because, animals who are desperate for food, don't wanna figure it out, they just want to eat as soon as possible. But I will utilize natural hunger cycles by starting a foraging toy opportunity before their next meal. So they're appropriately hungry, not unreasonably hungry.

And then another thing that's kind of related to the first one is social learning is a thing. So if the animal that you're working with is not the only one of their species in your household, if you have, if you're working with a dog and you have other dogs in the house, or if you're working with a cat and you have other cats in the house, and those other animals already have those skills a lot of times they can observe other members of their species do a thing, and that's how they learn to do it. They're like, oh, you mean dogs do rushing nesting dolls of cardboard boxes to, to forge for food? I can do that. 

And then the last thing is give it time. Sometimes animals just need to sit for a moment with a thing to decide that it's safe enough and interesting enough to experiment with. And this is true for animals who are more fearful more suspicious, especially if you have an animal who experiences neo phobia, where they're afraid of new things.

Sometimes it's just about letting something exist in their environment for a few weeks or months before they feel safe enough to poke at it and be like, okay, so tell me more about this object. What is it? 

Those are kind of the biggest pitfalls I see in using trash. be flexible, be creative, be patient, and you shall be rewarded. Okay, so how do we know that playing with trash is working? Well, this is an easy one. Usually play is the, is reason enough, right? If they are playing with a toy, I would call that success because play is an indicator of good welfare. So if they're playing with the trash that you gave them, good job improving their welfare and wellbeing. And likewise, foraging is often reason enough if they are foraging for their food, ta-da, success. You did it. Good job. 

However, we also will use trash for enrichment as an efficient, cheap way to increase behavioral diversity in animals whose behavioral diversity has been restricted either by fear, or inexperience, or medical reasons they've been confined. And also we will use trash to encourage animals to get out their wigglys, do some forging, get some mental, and physical exercise, so that they can rest. So if that's the reason that you're using trash in your return plan, then you would wanna see the outcome is after they engage with your trash toys, then they're resting afterwards.

So again, and as always the things that you're looking for to know whether or not you're successful depends on what your goals are. But those are the top four goals for me for using trash. In my enrichment plan, I, I want them to have play opportunities. I want them to have foraging opportunities.

I wanna encourage behavioral diversity, and I want them to rest. 

Okay. To recap, if you wanna use trash in your enrichment plan, you can either start with futs around and find out, just give it to them and see what happens, or you can learn about their species typical behaviors of the animals in your care, observe which of those behaviors they engage in, and identify what kind of trash gives them the ability to do those behaviors. The next step is do a risk assessment. And then make the thing, and then give them the thing, and then observe them for the first few times to make sure that they are engaging with the thing safely, and finally, adjust accordingly.

All right, that is it. Happy training.

[00:17:05] Allie: I hope you enjoy today's episode and if there's someone in your life who also needs to hear this, be sure to text it to them right now. If you're a pet parent looking for more tips on enrichment, behavior modification, and finding harmony with your pet, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Harmony training. If you're a behavior or training professional dedicated to enrichment for yourself, your clients, and their pets, check us out on TikTok and Instagram at Pet Harmony Pro.

As always, links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes. Thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode and making us sound good. Our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixa Bay. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps more pet lovers and professionals find us so they can bring enrichment into their world too.

Thank you for listening, and here's to harmony.