I usually use Kongs as food toys for my dogs. Food toys/puzzles are a magnificent way to stretch your dog’s mind muscles. When you can’t train with your dog’s meal, then use food puzzles. This way the dog still has to work for his meal, and that means expending that mental energy that you and I know is *work* to put out! Oh, and you don’t have to use just one type of food toy, or one food toy of the same type, you can spread the meal out in several.
Today I used a West Paw Tux for the first time. I’ll tell you a secret. I love Kongs, but I got a recent batch of them, and they really smelled awful! Toxic is the word. I’m still working on getting the *fumes* out of them, and will post on that later, but that batch propelled me to try out a new food toy, after decades of using the Kong.
So this is what it looks like. It’s quite big. And you can click on this image, or any image in my blog, to get the bigger picture.
Notice the hole in the middle? That’s it! That’s the entire space to fill with food! I was actually expecting to have a space equal to that and the three knobs at each end, but not so. Those knobs are solid, which is a good thing for those who use the thing as a dog toy as well. But I would really like to see West Paw make an alternative *food toy only* Tux with hallow knobs. That would take such an amount of time to unstuff. For dogs who wouldn’t rip the toy apart, that is.
The good thing to do with the West Paw Tux is to put something gooey in the bottom of it. I chose a couple of spoonfuls of all natural peanut butter and spread it around. Then I squished some banana on top. This would be great frozen. It would take quite a bit longer to unstuff. But the thing is that it took quite a while to unstuff as a non-frozen entity as well! And that surprised me. When I first saw the space for food in this toy, I thought it wouldn’t take long to unstuff, but the fact is, it’s quite the challenge with gooey food. We want to set our dogs up for challenges they can be successful at, remember, so start it out easily and move up according to your dog’s abilities. Do challenge appropriately.
Take a look at Dobermann Pinscher Raven. Here she is eating, not the original stuffed Tux, but the leftovers from the small kid who ate the original stuffed West Paw Tux, Trick Dog Champion Australian Shepherd Dudley! Isn’t that fantastic? The gift that keeps on giving.
If you are looking for a dog trainer in Broward county, contact me, and I’ll go over the food toy puzzles that are right for your dog, and I’ll teach you how to use them, and in the order of difficulty. It takes incremental steps training a dog in Broward county, or any county, to use a food toy. If you’re out of my county, I offer a coaching service over the phone, so please contact me. Remember, if you push too hard and too fast, your dog will get frustrated. And that isn’t going to help the cause.
By Helen Verte
Certified Pet Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed, Certified Trick Dog Instructor
Dog training Broward county
