09/04/2025
Does your dog get enough dog time or does it spend most of its time as a pet?
🤔 now that’s something to think about!
What can you do to help your dog dog?
Attend a Canine Curiosity Experience is an EXCELLENT way 😉
What is Behavioral Diversity?
At the heart of the Total Welfare Model is the idea that we can learn a great deal about a dog’s well-being by looking at the range of natural behaviors they are able to show when their needs are met and their instincts are honored.
The broader and more balanced this repertoire, the stronger the indication that a dog is experiencing a good life.
Examples include:
▪ Sniffing, tracking scents, digging, or pawing to explore
▪ Parading with a toy to invite interaction or show off
▪ Caching toys or bones in the yard or cushions
▪ Wrestling, ambushing, or play-stalking canine friends
▪ Rolling in the grass or basking in the sun
Navigating obstacles, perching, investigating, or patrolling with confidence
When a dog’s range narrows too much, welfare may be compromised. Why? Because without access to robust natural behaviors, dogs are restricted in some way. It may be their health, nutrition, environment, or interactions. Something is stopping them from doing enough “dogging.”
That’s a shift for the dog world to think about. We are so often asked to make dogs do less dog stuff. But true welfare means helping them do more of it.
This is what Total Welfare helps us learn to do: see dogs as dogs, meet dogs as dogs, assess dogs as dogs. With modern animal welfare science, we can move out of the dark ages and into a future that supports the whole picture of canine wellness and the Good Life they deserve.
The Total Welfare App helps track the breadth of natural behaviors as one part of the overall welfare picture, giving us greater confidence in understanding whether a dog is truly living the Good Life.