It is called a Dog Pyramid created by The Company of Animals in the UK. The bottom of the toy is weighted (like a Weeble Wobble) and there is one hole where food goes in (and comes out). This is a noisy, hard plastic toy (non toxic), but it is interactive, so I thought it would be fun for Possum, since she likes playing with toys and this one won’t roll away from her.
I put about ½ cup of kibble in there (it holds more than that) and set it down for her to play with. She spent about 45 minutes playing with it. The dog has to whack it fairly hard in order for it to tip enough for food to fall out. Of course, the more food that is in there, the easier it is for the dog to get the food out.
Possum is now sleeping and Ella is playing with the refilled Pyramid. Again, this is a pretty noisy toy, but Ella is having a fun time trying to get that food out of there. 30 minutes and there are still some pieces rattling around and she hasn’t given up yet. Nor has she become frightened by the noise it makes.
Not only that, but the toy is teaching her to use her paws instead of just her nose (if you recall, Ella tends to be a nose only dog, not a paw oriented dog, and I sometimes lament teaching her to use her paws).
The hole is fairly small – a piece of Solid Gold kibble just fits (I used Halo brand food in it). A small funnel would be useful if you want an entire dinner's worth of food in there. The hole is also the only spot that my small dogs can get a hold of in order to carry it around. It is about 7 – 8 inches in height and surprisingly heavy. I wouldn’t recommend that this toy be left with extreme chewers, but with supervision or dogs that just play with it, it is a great toy. Nor would I recommend that you put any soft food in it, since it is one piece and cleaning it would be nigh impossible!
All in all, this is a great toy.
It retails for $16.95 from Clean Run.
PS. When I was adding more food, I dropped the toy from counter height onto the floor. Not a scratch. On floor or toy.
No comments:
Post a Comment