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Keeping dogs busy playing on their own
By Liz Palika
July 19, 2009
We all have fun playing with our dogs; after all, that’s one of the reasons why we have dogs. But reality is that at times our dogs must be left home alone and many dogs get into trouble then. A treat-dispensing toy can keep a dog occupied while you leave, which is the most stressful part of being left alone.
When you introduce a new toy, always do so while you’re at home. Some dogs can be amazingly inventive or destructive, and you don’t want the dog to hurt himself on a new toy.
One of the original treat-dispensing toys and a staple toy in my dogs’ toy box is the Kong. The Kong looks like a rubber, hollow snowman. It’s a hard rubber, and although I’ve heard of a few dogs destroying the Kong, most do not. The Kong can be filled with dog treats, kibble, peanut butter, soft cheese or some commercial treats made expressly for this toy. Some dog owners fill the Kong with peanut butter and then freeze it. The Kong works because it takes a while for the dog to get all the treats out from inside it.
Another treat dispensing toy that’s been on the market for a while is the Buster Cube. This is a cube shaped hard plastic toy with a hole in one side. Treats or hard kibbles are put in the cube, and then a dial around the hole can be adjusted to let a few treats out at a time or just one. The dog has to flip the cube to get the treats out. I always have a Buster Cube around. but I have to admit the Buster Cube can be noisy if the dog is flipping it around on concrete or a tile floor.
Busy Buddiy makes toy called Twist’N Treats. The top and bottom can be unscrewed so that treats can be placed inside. Then the difficulty of getting the treats out can be adjusted by how close together you tighten the top and bottom. While testing this toy, I found my Australian Shepherds figured it out way too quickly, got the treats and then got bored. However, my business partner at Kindred Spirits, Petra Burke, said her Pomeranian, Keely, loves this toy and continues to play with it even after the treats are long gone.
Busy Buddies also makes Tug-a-Jug. I’m sure many readers have put a handful of treats in a plastic water bottle and then tossed it out for the dog to play with and toss around. This is along those lines except that the bottle is too hard for the dog to chew up – unlike the water bottle. In addition, there is a stopper in the Tug-a-jug bottle. The stopper is a hard rubber rope with a larger end inside the jug. If the stopper is pulled out away from the bottle, no treats come out. If the stopper is pushed into the bottle, treats will come out. Bashir, my 5-year-old Aussie, loved this toy. He could think about it, puzzle it out, carry it around, and get the treats. He worked at it for an hour an a half straight before I took it way so I could try it with another dog. However, Petra’s Aussie, Logan, chewed the rubber stopper off. This could have been dangerous had he swallowed it.
Nina Ottosson, the smart toy guru, has a toy for dogs left home alone. It’s called the Dog Pyramid. [Warning: Self-launching music on the site.] It is a pyramid shaped toy with rounded sides and a heavy bottom. Treats go inside and a hole is near the top on one side to release the treats. The dog needs to knock the toy over to get the treats but once knocked over, the toy always rights itself because of the heavy bottom. One of Kindred Spirits’ trainers, Connie, has a 12-week-old puppy named Peaches. Connie said she began giving Peaches her morning kibble in the toy. It kept Peaches occupied so Connie could begin her day.
In the heat of the summer, one of my dogs’ favorite treat-dispensing toys is a kiddie pool. I get an inexpensive plastic kids’ pool and fill it with water. I then drop a big block of ice in the middle as well as a handful of baby carrots and apple slices. The dogs can drink, play, splash, chew on the cube of ice and dunk for the treats!
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The Buster Cube lasted about ten minutes at our place.
Our GSD Mel, who was not even a particularly hard chewer, decided to cut to the chase and just crack it open with her mighty jaws. This created a pile of razor-sharp plastic shrapnel, the better to perforate your intestines, My Dear.
FAIL.
The only dog I’ve seen who could destroy a BLACK Kong was a smallish cattle dog bitch who whittled them down in a matter of a few days. Impressive. But at least the little rubber shavings she made were not harmful.
We lurve the Kong. Competing products from Premiere and Nylabone are also acceptable. I give a tutorial in Kong-stuffing to puppy-class students and puppy clients. Soda-bottle seeded with kibble is also a fine dog pastime, and costs nothing.
Comment by H. Houlahan — July 19, 2009 @ 7:08 am
The only dog *I* know who destroyed a black Kong was also a cattle dog!
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 19, 2009 @ 7:16 am
Uh, Gina - you also know a flat-coat that destroyed a black kong. We won’t mention any names, but you can see her name on your cell phone! ;o)
Comment by Teresa — July 19, 2009 @ 8:28 am
That would be THIS flatcoat?
Hey, T-Rod, can you take a few minutes to share on the tug toys you like, and why you use them?
Especially, where did you get that soft, fringy tug?
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 19, 2009 @ 8:31 am
I have a few comments about the toys mentioned..
Oddly enough, the only dog I know to ever bust apart a Kong is my own cattle dog mix. She quite easily peeled it in half, by her account a much simpler way to get the peanut butter out.
For stuffing Kongs, we like to use mashed potatoes as a base. Then add whatever you feel like. Veggies and meat from the leftovers, some scrambled eggs, some cereal, kibble, etc. Some GREAT Kong recipes can be found here: http://users.eastlink.ca/~joan.....ecipes.PDF
Heather, I’ve never had a dog bust apart a Buster Cube, but I don’t doubt that the resulting pieces are horrific.
As for the tug-a-jug, I avoid those things like the plague. My dogs VERY easily chewed off the bottom of the supposedly bullet proof plastic bottle. The plastic shards were unbelievable, and totally swallow-sized. It shatters like glass. Not cool! Also, they changed the original design which used to have a regular cotton rope - in my opinion MUCH more durable than the rubber version they have now.
I haven’t had a chance to use the Nina Ottotson pyramid, but I do have some on order.
Gina, have you ever checked out the Petstages line of puppy toys? Nice soft rubber, really great soft rope… they have some fab bird toys too.
Comment by Kim — July 19, 2009 @ 1:20 pm
The Tug a Jug rules in our house!
Comment by Amy — July 19, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
Buster cubes are the toy from Hell. Noisy doesn’t begin to describe the sound of the plastic whamming into a wall or chair leg. And dog forbid one should get entangled in your computer cords. You know, that mess of wires and plugs and stuff under your desk.
Only one of my dogs is besotted with the cube.It’s the small size, but he’s big enough to pick it up, and has learned if it crosses the threshold into my office, he’s going to be in trouble. He can just pick it up, and to avoid the conga line of opportunists following him and the cube around he will deposit it in the wing chair in the living room, which is not so good for the cushion but keeps the other hounds at bay so to speak.
I keep it in the center cupboard of my Victorian side board, and have learned to 1. keep it locked 2. remove the key. Otherwise Mr. Clever can open it and remove the Cube ( and everything else in the cupboard). I hate Buster Cubes.
Comment by Anne T — July 19, 2009 @ 6:51 pm
One of the reasons I chose Harper, and one of the things I love best about her, is that she’s capable of entertaining herself. It cracks me up to watch her nose her ball off the sofa or down the stairs and then run after it.
Comment by Kim Thornton — July 19, 2009 @ 10:58 pm
My lab mix, who is generally pretty smart, got bored with trying the tug-a-jug before he figured it out. It gets ignored now when I bring it down. Which is OK because the hard plastic was VERY noisy when dropped repeatedly on hardwood floors.
His black Kong on the other hand (with whathaveyou stuff inside of it) is invaluable.
He’s destroyed every soft toy he’s ever had, including two Tuffy’s “the world’s “tuff”est soft dog toy.”
Comment by Original Lori — July 20, 2009 @ 8:27 am
I can think of quite a few dogs who thought nothing of destroying Buster Cubes or even the giant black Kongs.
One dog in particular had a penchant for grabbing the cubes and flinging them against her owners’ cinder block wall until they disintegrated into dozens of sharp fragments that were sifted through for the little treats the owners stuffed them with. After about 4 of these, they abandoned the idea altogether.
I personally don’t like giving dogs toys that are manufactured out of products that resemble human accouterments; fabric toys are too similar to upholstery, cloth slippers and clothing to name a few, and rubber or plastic toys are too similar to children’s toys.
I absolutely HATE rawhide and find dogs lose interest in nylabones too easily. I’m not a big fan of those horrid cattle feet or bullies.
The concept of rendering all of the animal for consumption is a great one, but I find that there are too many variables in preparation of these items for me to take the risk, especially since I entertain such a large population of dogs that are not my own.
I prefer just good ole’ fashioned bones. I usually order a couple dozen from http://www.whitedogbone.com a few times a year and gift them to dogs who come for residency training.
The sterilized white bones last a long time even with the most energetic chewers. You can stuff them with your own goodies for the particular dog who is not a big chewer and the smoked variety last longer and hold more interest for the really committed chewers. I have never had one splinter yet and the average chewer in this house runs from not at all to must-have-been-a-beaver-in-another-life.
Stuffed toys are verboten as implements of pacifying as are all man-made products. Too much risk of dogs ingesting something and causing intestinal blockages.
I prefer to use them as “interactive” toys that I share in play with dogs. I control access and I limit access to these items. Tugs made out of old towels that are wrapped and banded with thin strips of other old towels, tennis balls I get from my pro tennis player friend pierced and fastened to sturdy tug ropes and of course the bumpers, which are never to be chewed on.
For dogs to play with other dogs, I have a supplier of good tow rope that is made hemp. I was gifted a 100 foot length of nautical rope about 5 or 6 years ago and still have most of it. I cut three foot sections, knot the ends of it and let them use it to tug with each other.
Most of the dogs know that any specific object is just a representative of a game like tug or the play retrieve.
Tennis ball tugs and towel tugs are primarily training motivators; they represent the payoff for a job well done. Tennis balls without the tethers are for play retrieves, as are the cloth flying discs. Ball-on-a-rope is for tugging dog to dog, knotted rope is for dog and dog or dog and people.
Rarely do the dogs chew on objects designed for interactive play.
The giant ball-on-a-rope is a perennial fave in the exercise yard. It is ancient and has not been chewed much. The rope gets all gunky and has to be changed out occasionally, but the ball is the same ball I have had for years.
Pacifier toys are where the dog has access to them in my absence and are limited to things that are organic in nature. I find that this limits his desire to find solace in the owner’s belongings and is something the dog can clearly identify with as exclusively “his”.
My dining room looked like a dinosaur died in it for a long time. It’s bones scattered about in an assortment of dog beds, under tables, at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second floor. After tripping on them so many times, I now limit them to crate time, or to a specific area of the house.
I don’t tolerate resource guarding. Bones in crates are the sole property of the occupant, but in the absence of the occupant, the crate is closed from access by others. Everyone knows his or her crate and his or her bone.
In the house, bones are traded and shared.
Saves me money too.
Comment by Linda Kaim — July 20, 2009 @ 9:28 am
Dodger likes the Twist n Treats. Ginger loves the Nina Ottoson puzzles but Dodger doesn’t like them.
Comment by Phyllis DeGioia — July 20, 2009 @ 1:44 pm