Lessons From and For 4 Legs

Maizey loves the Tricky Treat Ball

We love treat dispensing toys. They make feeding time into a game, giving the pups a mental workout and a lot of fun. We love them so much my dogs rarely eat out of bowls. Today I started them both on their fall time cleanse and it’s a sort of gooey liquid that doesn’t lend itself to toys. I also give them a squirt of fish oil once a day and that also makes a mess of their toys and my floors. So this morning I fed them in bowls and they both looked at me like, “MOM! What’s this and where’s my toy?? This is bo-oring!!” So tonight we went back to toys.

The Tricky Treat Ball is definitely their favorite. I brought it home for Magnus, but Maizey is actually the one who loves it the most. It’s a giant, bright orange ball with a big hole in it. I thought it would never work, but with the way the hole is shaped it only spits our two or three pieces of kibble at a time. The dogs have to roll it a certain way to get the food out. They love it.

Tied for favorite is what we affectionately call the bottle monkey. It’s a soft monkey with a plastic water bottle in it. I turned the bottle around so the spout sticks out. I stuff it with kibble, smash the top and the dogs have to toss it around to get the food out. Charley used to be pickiest eater and bottle monkey’s cured him. He loves dinner time now!

The bottle monkey runs a close second

I’d rate the Tug-A-Jug a super genius toy. The treats only come out when they’re at the end rope end of the toy and the rope gets pulled out. Magnus loves it, but he’ll bring it to me after a while with a look like, “This thing’s broken again, please make it give me a treat!” It just makes Maizey mad and she tends to take a wack it as hard as she can over and over until it gives up it’s goods attitude. It’s funny, but I don’t let her have it much. It’s a good treat toy, but not great for feeding out of.

Of course we love the old faithful Kong. At work one of our customers asked me how many she should have. I just laughed and said I’m sure people survived with one but I probably have a dozen of all shapes and sizes. My favorite thing to do with a Kong is make a Kong lasagna. Start with kibble then layer canned food, banana, or something else gooey, another layer of kibble, etc. I will seal it with some peanut butter, but I try to keep the peanut better to a minimum since it’s so high in fat. Don’t forget to freeze it to up the difficulty level.

We also love the Hol-ee Roller, though you have to get very big treats to make it a challenge. What I mostly love it for is a bully holder. You never heard of a bully holder? That’s cause I’m usually the bully holder and trust me I don’t love holding onto a smelly bully for Magnus to slobber all over me. So weave a bully through a couple of the holes and voilà! Instant bully holder.

"This is soooooo gooood!"

"Hol-ee Roller? More like Holy bully holder!"

And finally our most low tech food dispensing toy, the two liter bottle. It’s noisy, especially on the hard wood and if a dog could get any plastic off of this I would never let them have it, but mine don’t have a problem with that and they love it. I drink tons of carbonated water instead of soda and I just take one of my two liters stuff some kibble in it and smash the spout end flat. It’s good for at least 15 minutes of good clean fun!

I was not paid for these reviews, just sharing some of our fav’s and now I want o hear from you. What are your dogs favorite toys?

If you want to check out more awesome dog products Crystal did a great post about her favorite  dog products.

I still think the dogs need to eat out of bowls sometimes, but I know they much prefer all of their toys. If at this point you’re thinking how spoiled my dogs are, you’re right, but a very wise woman once told me, “spoiled is just well loved.” She was right!