There are a number of reasons why giving your dog a stuffed Kong, West Paw Toppl Toy, or other similar product can be good for your dog…and for you.
- It is mental, physical, and sensory enrichment.
- When your dog is busy eating from the toy, he is not doing other behaviors that you don’t like.
- While your dog is occupied on the task of getting to his food, you can be occupied with cooking, cleaning, working, eating meals. During holidays like Thanksgiving, that may be even more important to you.
- It will slow down your dog’s eating.
- It will make meal time fun for your dog.
- It will prevent you from needing to throw away those meal left overs (so long as the food is safe for your dog).
Note that there are also a lot of other fun activities to engage your dog into working for meals. I’ve shared some of those in my blog (just search for dog enrichment).
A lot of people just use peanut butter in their Kongs but there are so many other healthy (and tasty) choices. Besides, please be careful when using peanut butter that it does not contain xylitol which is toxic to dogs).
How To Fill A Kong
I like to serve Kongs and Toppl Toys frozen as they do not make such a mess on floors and they take longer to be eaten.
If your dog is hesitant to eat from one of these, you may first want to try making getting the treats easy. With success will come more value in the activity. In this video I first show how I put loose high value treats into a Kong for my Dawson to get out. Then I inserted a bully stick into the large hole in the Kong.
Once your dog readily shows interest in the Kong (or other toy), then you can fill it with more difficult food to get out.
When filling, it is helpful to first have some sort of base in the bottom (by the small hole). This can include a combination of hard, loose pieces held together with something moist; or you can simply use something semi-solid that is moist but not runny.
A few ideas for the base include: peanut butter (that does not contain xylitol), yogurt, canned dog food, cooked and mashed yams.
The inside can be any combination of hard and soft ingredients.
Below is a list of ingredient ideas.
Mashed bananas
Apples (without the core/stems/seeds)
Natural baby food
Bananas
Carrots
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Spinach
Kale
Peas
Yams
Green beans
Oranges
Mangoes
Cranberries and blue berries (however, these can stain floors and clothes!)
Cream cheese/cottage cheese/ricotta cheese/string cheese
Oatmeal
Yogurt
Cooked or canned salmon
Meat or chicken pieces or puree
Do you feed your dog in a Kong? How do you stuff yours?
