Animal Enrichment Day is a good opportunity for us to talk about how the dogs at our sanctuary project in Ankara actually live because enrichment for us has never simply meant giving a dog a toy.
Many of our dogs were born on the streets. Others lived on the streets for a significant part of their lives before coming into our care. They are individuals with their own preferences and we don’t expect every one of them to suddenly decide that living indoors is wonderful simply because humans think it should be.
Our dogs have large outdoor kennels which are more like little huts, summerhouses or garden sheds. They also have communal indoor spaces with furniture, sofas and dog beds. They can move between the different areas and, wherever possible, decide for themselves where they want to spend their time.
Some absolutely embrace indoor living. They discover sofas, comfortable beds and warm rooms and appear to wonder why nobody introduced them to these things sooner. Others like a bit of both. They will spend some time indoors and then wander back outside. They might sleep inside one day and choose one of the outdoor spaces the next.
And then there are a few who simply prefer being outside. That’s fine. They aren’t forced indoors because we have decided that must be better and they aren’t confined to individual kennels because that makes managing them easier. They have space to move around.
There is a playground where they can run and play, with play equipment for them to investigate. There are toys in the garden and when summer arrives so does the pool.
But enrichment is about much more than any of those things. It is being able to wander around and investigate something interesting. It is choosing another dog to play with. It is finding somewhere quiet to sleep. It is lying in the sunshine or moving into the shade. It is going indoors when you want to and wandering back outside when you’ve had enough. Sometimes it is doing absolutely nothing.
And perhaps most importantly, it is having some control over your own life. That matters enormously when we are caring for street-born dogs.
These are dogs who once made decisions for themselves every day. They chose where they slept, where they walked, who they interacted with and where they spent their time. Coming into sanctuary gives them safety, food, veterinary care and protection, but we don’t believe that safety should automatically mean taking every choice away from them. Of course there has to be structure. Feeding happens. Cleaning happens. Veterinary care happens. Dogs have individual needs which have to be managed and sometimes decisions have to be made for them.
But within that structure there can still be freedom. For us, that is a huge part of enrichment.
Enrichment shouldn’t be about creating the life we think a dog ought to enjoy. It should be about giving that dog opportunities and then allowing them to tell us what they actually enjoy. Our sanctuary isn’t somewhere we want dogs simply to exist safely. It is their home. And we want them to be able to live in it.