Weighted Base Treat Dispenser
Today in my series on Tough Toys and Brain Games for Dogs I’m trying a weighted base treat dispenser. We have had this for a while. It was Alfie’s years ago but I hadn’t used it before. Unfortunately, we can’t find the make of this one, but I’ll give you a couple of links to similar products after I’ve told you what happened. We may get the chance to show you one of the others at some point too as Mum dropped this one on the hard floor after I’d done my video and it has developed a crack. That is probably a point in favour of the rubber one made by Kong, but I’ll come back to that.
Quick to learn
I found it very quick to learn how to use it. The video below is only from my second attempt. Mum put my lunch in it, so there was a real incentive to find out what to do as I was hungry. On my first attempt Mum let me struggle for a while before gently moving it with her foot so that I’d get the idea. As you can see, I didn’t take long for me to realise I could use both my nose and paw to move it around to get it to dispense the kibble. I did get it stuck under a cupboard door at one point and got very frustrated, but I would soon learn to get it out again if I used it regularly.
Mum had the slot open to maximum width so it wasn’t too hard to begin with. This one has a simply turn system to make the hole the kibble is dispensed with smaller. That would keep me occupied for longer once I was completely proficient.
Downsides
There are only three downsides that we can see to this particular device. 1) Mum dropped it and it has cracked. She says I’m not to use it now because it has sharp edges, which is very disappointing as I liked it. 2) With the weighted base and the way it is constructed, it is not that easy to wash and keep clean. 3)When it hadn’t been used for a while the top, which opens up so you can fill it with treats, had fused to the bottom and Mum had to run it under a hot tap to get them apart.
It was clear that when he’d used it previously one of the boys had tried chewing it open. Mum thought that was Aristotle rather than Alfie. He had not succeeded and it is pretty tough.
Overall, we’d give it 4 out of 5.
Where can you get something similar?
We found two options that look good. There is one made by Kong, which has the advantage of being made of rubber. That one is HERE. There is also one by a company called Zellar who were weren’t familiar with and that one is HERE. We think they are definitely worth a try.
West Paw
Our friend Ruby has recommended we include some of the toys and games from West Paw in our analysis. Thank you, Ruby. We’ve added them to our list and will tell you about those in a future week’s test.
Love
Wilma
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