11/19/2025
Let’s talk about true biological fulfilment 👇
What does it actually mean to fulfil your dog’s instincts? Especially in the context of working through behaviour problems?
First, let’s break down what I mean by fulfilment (or enrichment).
It’s about creating activities or environmental changes that support a dog’s physical and psychological well-being — giving them opportunities to express natural behaviours that lead to visible changes in how they feel and act. This means increased relaxation behaviours, and less “alert” and “stress” behaviours.
I developed this handy little framework to guide my own thinking around fulfilment and how I design a dog’s lifestyle — I call it the Fulfilment Hierarchy.
It breaks a dog’s needs into three distinct layers to honour your dog’s species, breed, and individual needs.
If you’ve followed this page for a while, you know I’m incredibly passionate about herding breeds and herding education. So it might surprise you when I say this: breed outlet matter, but not nearly as much as getting the basics right.
Spending time with dogs in both the city and the bush has shown me how much they shift when they have the freedom to move, explore, sniff, and engage with the world. Those simple, species-level experiences improve a dog’s emotional state far more than any structured, breed-focused activity.
I think sometimes we tend to overcomplicate fulfilment for our dogs. I know I’ve seen a LOT of the conversation around fulfilment has started to centre on breed-specific outlets — herding classes for herders, scent work for hounds, retrieval work for retrievers — all fantastic and valuable, but only one layer of the bigger picture. Fulfilling breed instincts only goes so far if the dog never has an opportunity to simply be a dog.
Do I think all dogs should have the opportunity to try the things that they were bred for (or safe surrogates) - absolutely! But I do not believe every dog needs to be doing regular breed specific fulfilment to live a full and happy life.
Curious to hear your thoughts — let’s discuss! What fulfils your dog the most? Where do you think most dogs miss out? 👇
