Episode #124 Mental Enrichment with Jessica from Dogs Made Simple

Jessica Sims, the creator of Dogs Made Simple joins Amy in studio to talk about mental enrichment with our dogs. 

Transcript

Amy: 0:00

This is the puppy training podcast episode 124 mental enrichment with Jessica Sims. This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the puppy training podcast. And I'm your host, Amy Jensen. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's podcast. I'm super excited about our topic today, I have a special guest with me, her name is Jessica Sims. And we are going to discuss mental enrichment with our dogs as the weather cools down for many of us, uh, depends on where you live, I guess. Many of us are inside our dogs are inside. And we could use this right now about this time of year. So welcome, Jessica. How are you today?

Jessica: 0:53

Thank you. Thank you for that amazing introduction. I am so glad to be here today. I can't wait to dive into it. I have so much to share lots of experience. We're doing good. It's definitely cold outside, like you said, walks are kind of shortening now a bit. So trying to keep my my active Piper little boy busy inside as well. So I can't wait to dive into

Amy: 1:17

it. Well, I'm going to let you introduce yourself. Will you just tell us a little bit about what it is you do in the dog space? Let us know you know what you do and how you got started. And then it sounds like you have a dog right there with you. So maybe introduce him to

Unknown: 1:31

totally Yes. So long story short, I moved out from my parents about two years ago. And of course, the first thing I said to myself was, I want a dog. I didn't even care if the renovations were not even complete in the house. It was I was getting a puppy and that was it. So I grew up with golden retrievers my entire life. So for me, it was automatic that that's what I was getting. I didn't do much homework on the breeder which was, you know, kind of my little mistake, I guess you could say, but he seemed super nice. And we drove all the way to Toronto got diesel. He came with all those vaccines, you know, the normal checklist that you you look for when you get a puppy, but didn't do any homework on what the breeder did when diesel between when he was born and up until eight weeks. So we picked him up headed on home. And right off the bat I noticed some some aggression, some resource guarding behaviors. And so that's when I said okay, I'm in for for something special. And so I, of course spend lots of money on dog training, I did all kinds of things and nothing was was working. Honestly, I didn't know what to do. I was hopeless. And so that's when I started sharing my story. And I was I knew nothing about dog training. I'm still I tell everybody, I'm not a dog trainer. I'm just sharing my experience as a dog owner. And the ups and downs that come with owning a dog because it's not always picture perfect. So that's kind of how I started dogs made simple because I'm like, let me break it down for dog owners who are feeling hopeless like I did, because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. So that's kind of my, my long story short and how I started this whole dogs made simple page.

Amy: 3:18

That's awesome. Yeah, tell us a little bit more about dogs made simple. And how can people find

Unknown: 3:21

you? Yeah, totally. So right as of right now, I'm on Instagram and I'm on Tik Tok. I, it's funny enough, I, you know, in my personal day to day, I'm not into social media at all. So I was kind of shy at first I'm like, Okay, I don't even know how to create a video on tick tock. And so I started from there. And yeah, I'm in the process of launching my website as well. And a dog's made simple product lines. So enrichment, toys, all that fun stuff. toys that I believe in toys that I just always said, I wish I could find this on the market that you know, will keep a dog busy for several minutes to even hours a day. So that's, that's, that's where I am.

Amy: 4:02

That's amazing. What a fun journey. And diesel's very lucky. It sounds like to to have you in his life. So you mentioned a couple of issues that he had that you noticed right out of the gates when you got this puppy. Can you tell us how you went about helping him with those issues?

Unknown: 4:18

Totally so and to be totally transparent with you guys. It was really by aggression and resource guard issues. I don't we don't know to this day what it was, of course, as a dog owner, you blame it on yourself. You're like, what did I do wrong? What went wrong? Where? To the point where when I brought him home, he was nine weeks old. He went to the vet. They gave him his first round of vaccines that he needed, and they gave him a rawhide bone. And of course there's a puppy you can't finish it and I went to grab it and he totally lunged at me and he was only nine weeks old. So I of course panicked. I'm like this is this is not normal, but I said what Let me just let it go. So I think my my number one advice to dog owners who are going through any kind of experience, whether it's you know, little issues or drastic issues like I went through is, don't overthink it first of all, and know that no matter what you're going through, you're not alone. And anything can be fixed. So the two words I always worked with, and that I learned to work with as the months went by with dog training is patience, and consistency. Because at the end of the day, any dog, even if they are aggressive, sometimes, or there's certain issues that they're having, they, they love you and they want your best interest. And they always want to please dogs are people pleasers. And you have to remember that. So it's just a matter of being patient with them. And they, they follow your emotions as well. So if you get mad at them, and you know, when diesel came, lunged at me, I, the worst thing you could do is get mad and freak out because they're just going to come right back at you. So I think that was, that's how I approached all of these issues at the beginning was patience, consistency. And, and the results came within time.

Amy: 6:10

That's wonderful advice for new dog owners and any dog owner, really, I guess any human being in general. But those are definitely two words that we use a lot here at Baxter & Bella to help coach you know, these clients through some of these issues that you've experienced. So I know that you've discovered some really cool, fun mental enrichment things that you've done with diesel to help him, you know, through some of these issues that you've noticed with him. Do you want to describe a few of your favorites for us?

Unknown: 6:39

Yeah, totally. So I, when I first you know, when you first moved out you we had we had a lot of renovations to do. So I couldn't just go out and buy any kind of toy and, and because you can easily spend a fortune right on mental enriching toys. So I started to figure out okay, what can I do at home something that's easy, quick, like any kind of enrichment games I could just DIY. So one of the first ones I did, and I don't even know where the idea came from. But I noticed that diesel loved to play with his blanket. And you know, sometimes they like to chew it up on their puppies. So one of my favorite ones that I did was I wrote, I took a blanket, and I put it on the floor, and I just spread treats in it and rolled it up. And he kept him busy for 25 minutes. And I'm like, wow, okay, so DIY, mental enrichment. Like, seriously, you can find objects in your house. And you can keep your dog busy. And it's easy if you work from home. And we're all busy, whether we work from home or not, we all have crazy schedules. So something that's easy to set up. So that was the blanket one. And what I like about it is because you can make it more and more difficult, right? So you could tie the knot tighter, you could take the blanket and even hide it afterwards, there's so many things that you could do with it. And another one that I love is hide and seek. Sounds basic, but honestly, you I get diesel to sit and stay. So when I'm cooking, I'm actually training him. And I'm getting him to self control to sit there and stay while I spread treats out and he sees me placing treats around the house. And it's a great, great self control game. And then I let him go and he just runs around the house and tries to find treats. And again, you can increase the level of difficulty because you play streets, you know, somewhere higher up or hitting really behind the desk. And it's a great sniffing game, which sniffing for dogs is huge and super important as well. So those are my top two favorite but of course I have a ton of them and DIY, totally fine of yourself playing. There's enrichment games you can set up by yourself and from home.

Amy: 8:48

Yeah, Hide and Seek is one of our favorites. Baxter adores it, we sometimes we hide, and then sometimes we'll hide his toys. So we just play hide and seek with him and his toy. And we've coined it to be find your toy. So we'll hide that thing all over the house and he loves he'll sit and stay super long, because he's motivated for us to say, Okay, go find your toy. You know, he'll look at you like, Okay, I'm ready. So yeah, like you mentioned, it's a great way to not only practice the training that we teach these guys, but also a great mental enrichment game for them. I also find you do a few activities with your dog to exercise them mentally. And then they're really ready to chill out or to a bone or settle down and do something on their own. But these are great activities to just get their minds going and get some of that energy out, especially like we mentioned, not all of us are wanting to run around outside for very long these days because it's getting colder. So some of these indoor games are fascinating and wonderful. Totally. And

Unknown: 9:47

one thing I really advocate for is mental enrichment is just as exhausting as physical exercise. And I'm not saying your dog doesn't need physical exercise, they need their walks in they need that that exercise, but he is just as exhausted when I when I set him up with a little game. It's it's just so important. And one other piece of that is it's bonding time with your dog. Like if you play hide and seek, you're you're not only keeping your dog busy, but you're bonding and you're building trust. So I noticed with diesel with mostly with his resource guarding issues and aggression was that he was scared that I was taking away his food. So when you play hide and seek and he's sitting there and he's seeing you put treats all around the house, and then I tell him go ahead, and I'm not going to take your treats that shows your dog, okay, you know, I lay not only my enjoying my time with my dog with with my owner, but she's not taking away my treats. And she's not you know, she's not the enemy. I realized it just building trust as well with your dog and bonding is a great way to come through a lot of issues.

Amy: 10:51

Thanks for sharing that it's a very important thing that we have that relationship with our dogs. And at Baxter & Bella, that's one of our main things we try to coach is build a relationship with your dog, right? Like we got a dog to live life with. So we want to have fun with them. We want to enjoy being with them. We want them to enjoy being with us. And that's really what it's all about. Totally. Well, Jessica, it's been fun talking to you today. Thanks for coming on. We're going to have you on again in a few weeks, I think to talk about some more of this because I love diesel story. I love that you just dove in as a new dog owner and are just learning and soaking up all you can. So I know you don't classify yourself as a trainer. But I think you have a lot of great advice to offer my clients and my listeners. So thanks for being here today. And we look forward to learning more about you and diesel.

Unknown: 11:36

Awesome. Yes, totally. I look forward to it. And thanks for having me today.

Amy: 11:40

All right, you guys check out Jessica Sims on her social media platforms. It's dogs made simple Right?

Unknown: 11:46

Exactly. Dogs made simple on Instagram and Tiktok

Amy: 11:50

Okay, all right. Well, thank you so much for being here. You guys. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Enjoy your holidays if you have holidays coming up where you are and we will talk to you soon. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other Puppy Training question, visit my site Baxter & bella.com to contact me