Best Treat Dispensing Dog Toys

If it was up to us, we’d spend every minute with our dogs, but, unfortunately, that’s just not possible. When we need to leave our dogs at home for any reason, they often make sure we know that they aren’t happy about this. Some dogs experience separation anxiety or extreme boredom when left home alone, which leads to destructive or problem behavior, like barking or whining.

Treat dispensing toys can’t cure severe separation anxiety, but they can give your dog something to do when you are away, which can eliminate destructive behavior and give your dog something to do, other than barking or pacing.

These toys slow down your dog’s eating, stimulate their mind, and provide exercise. They make your dog work for their food, even when you can’t be there.

How do treat dispensing toys benefit dogs

Treat dispensing toys benefit dogs and their owners in a number of ways. These kinds of toys are some of the most important tools for helping our dogs adapt to a largely sedentary modern lifestyle. Treat dispensing toys occupy their time, make them eat more slowly, satisfy instinctual urges, and provide mental stimulation.

Here are some of the great ways that treat dispensing toys can help dogs.

Satisfy evolutionary drives to chase, chew, discover, and find food

Dogs used to spend a lot of their time foraging for food or working for humans. Now that dogs rarely have jobs and food comes in a bowl, dogs are left without anything to satisfy their instinctual urges to chew, forage, and search out rewards.

Food toys allow dogs to satisfy these instinctual urges in a constructive way, without destroying your home or furniture.

Soothe anxious or over-excited dogs

Active, intelligent dogs can easily become anxious or develop behavioral problems when they don’t have anything to do. Dogs can’t feel anxious when they are using their noses to seek out food. Dogs that tend to be overexcited, learn that self-control and thinking out the problem is more likely to lead to success, rather than frantic energy.

Reduce separation anxiety

If your dog experiences anxiety when you leave, a food distributing toy can help give them something else to think about. Dogs that experience severe separation anxiety and don’t care about food when you leave will not be occupied by a food dispensing toy, but dogs that are willing to eat, although they are nervous when you leave, may spend some time playing with the toy, instead of worrying about you being gone. These toys are also a good way to keep separation anxiety from developing.

Entertainment during crate or downtime

When you go to work or leave the house, your dog is left without anything to do. Giving them a food toy during these times allows them to entertain themselves so that they will be calm when you get home. Dogs that tend to destroy things can let out their energy constructively.

Stop eating too fast

If your dog consumes their meals too rapidly, they could be in danger of developing a serious problem, like bloat. Food dispensing toys slow down your dog’s eating, while providing entertainment.

Food-Distributing Toys Vs Puzzle Games

Both puzzle toys and food distributing toys provide food or treats to your dog when they perform particular behaviors. The primary difference between them is that food dispensing toys are made to be chewed on and played with without supervision, whereas puzzle toys are designed to be used with your supervision and possible assistance.

Puzzle toys are great for downtime when you are present. They teach your dog to accept your help and work together with you to achieve goals. These challenging puzzles stretch your dog’s mind and teach them advanced problem-solving skills.

They are usually made of relatively delicate pieces and hard plastic, which isn’t designed to be chewed on, so you must teach your dog how to use puzzle toys properly.

Food distributing toys are made to be used safely without your supervision, once you have observed your dog playing with them for some time. You can choose a toy that is tough enough for even the most intense chewers. Even if your dog does manage to destroy these toys, the rubber is designed to pass harmlessly through your dog’s system.

Both types of toys are valuable tools that can occupy your intelligent dog’s mind and keep them active.

Product Reviews

Leaving Dogs Alone With Toys

Most food distributing toys are made to be chewed on and are durable enough that you can feel safe leaving your dog alone with them. You should never leave your dog alone with a toy until you have observed them using it for some time and have a good sense of what they will do with it.

Even when you have observed your dog using a toy for some time and you feel confident that they are unlikely to destroy it, be careful to pay attention to the wear and tear on the toy and make sure to discard it, before it begins to break down. If you frequently wash your dog’s toys in the dishwasher or they’re left out in the sun, they will break down faster.

Most food distributing toys are made of a rubber that is designed to break into small pieces and be passed through your dog’s system, so, if your dog eats some small pieces of their toy, it should not be a problem. Just remove the toy and keep an eye out for the brightly colored rubber in your dog’s stool, over the next few days.

What Kinds Of Food Can Fill Food-Distributing Toys?

Depending on the type of food distributing toy, there is a range of fillings that work well. Some food distributing toys are designed to be stuffed with a rawhide or bully stick, so the chew lasts longer. Others are made to distribute your dog’s daily kibble or dry treats.

Still, others work best with smearable treats, like cottage cheese, cream cheese, peanut butter, or one of the spreads made by Kong or a similar company. Here are some suggestions for how to fill your food distributing toy.

Daily kibble from a food distributing toy turns crate time into meal time into puzzle time. Your dog may not mind their daily time in the crate if they also get a fun, yummy puzzle. You can also use food toys with kibble, to reward your dog for good behavior throughout the day in a “work for your food” training style.

Veggies offer a healthy challenge any time of day. They can be mixed with more desirable treats or kibble, to stretch out the game without giving your dog too many calories. Try a range of different kinds of vegetables to see what your dog likes best. You may find that your dog is more interested in vegetables that are mixed in a food toy with other kinds of treats, than just vegetables, alone.

Natural dried treats, like dried sweet potato, dehydrated meat, and dried tendons, esophagus, and ears, are all great ways to make food toys extremely enticing to your dog and stretch out playtime. Some of these treats can be a little gross and messy, so they may be a good option for outside or in their crate, where you can clean up the mess easily.

Pre-made treats, like dog biscuits and training rewards, are a great way to make kibble or vegetables more enticing in a food distributing toy. These kinds of treats are also great when you break them up because they let a variety of pieces fall out, in different sizes, and keep your dog playing. Be careful not to use too many of these kinds of treats, since they are usually not the healthiest. Many pre-made treats have fillers or sweeteners.

Raw food, wet food, and smearable treats, like cheese and peanut butter, work well in some food distributing toys. Be careful to only give these toys in areas that you can easily clean or that you don’t mind getting dirty, like inside your dog’s crate or outside. This is especially important with raw food, which carries bacteria that can infect you or other people in your household.

That said, if your dog’s food is wet or raw, a food toy can be a great way to dole it out. Most of these toys can be washed in the dishwasher, so you can feel confident that all of the bacteria has been killed. To be extra safe, most toys can be washed in a mild solution of bleach, to thoroughly eliminate any possibility of contaminants.

Keep in mind that toys that are frequently washed in the dishwasher or cleaned with harsh chemicals will not last as long.

Make It More Fun By Freezing

Most food distributing toys can be frozen. This provides an awesome treat on hot days and also extends playtime for clever dogs, at any time. The range of foods that can be frozen is extensive. Freezing wet, raw, or smearable treats will make the game much more challenging for your dog.

If your dog is often in need of entertainment throughout the day and you don’t have time to load food toys every day, you can preload a range of food toys and freeze them for grabbable entertainment for your dog.

How To Make Toys More Challenging

Some food distributing toys come with slides to adjust the size of the opening or prongs that can be trimmed to determine the degree of challenge. Even toys that don’t have a way to adjust the challenge level can be made more or less challenging, depending on what you use to fill them.

Your dog will have a harder time getting larger treats through the hole, creating a more challenging game, while smaller pieces will fall out more easily.

Making wet food, cheese, or peanut butter stick to the inside of the food toy can make them much more challenging, as well. Freezing toys also increases the challenge. Some toys can be loaded with a chewable natural dried product or bone to make them into food toys, as well as chew toys, and increase the time that your dog spends working on them.

Avoid Fattening Your Dog

Food distributing toys are a wonderful way to stretch out meal time and make your dog work for their food. Dogs fed with food toys are less likely to be overweight and are more likely to have good body tone. That said, a dog who eats high-calorie treats all day will gain weight, no matter how hard they work for the food.

It is important to carefully monitor your dog’s intake, as well as their weight, to make sure that their food toy doesn’t cause them to gain weight.

The rib test

It may come as a surprise to many people that a dog’s ribs should be clearly discernible by touch and even by sight. Many American dogs are too chunky. While a pudgy pooch can certainly be adorable, the extra weight puts a lot of strain on their hips and back and can cause serious health problems, as well as reducing your dog’s overall quality of life.

You should be able to feel your dog’s ribs clearly under the surface of the skin when you rub your hand over their flank.

The value of veggies

Many dogs take some convincing to learn to like veggies, especially if they’ve always had high-value food and treats, but once you convince your dog to accept a vegetable as a treat, you will have a wonderful tool.

Vegetables can be mixed with high-value and high-calorie treats, and even your dog’s regular kibble, so that your dog gets much more playtime for the calories they consume.

Furthermore, vegetables are good for your dog. Your dog will get much-needed vitamins and fiber from their daily vegetable treats. Teach your dog how delicious vegetables can be by starting with high-value vegetables, like carrots and Brussel sprouts, and working down to less desirable vegetables, like celery and green beans.

Try a wide range of vegetables to see what your dog likes best. Mix vegetables with high-value treats and delicious smearables, like wet food, cheese, and peanut butter, to convince your dog to think of vegetables as treats.

Use the best stuff sparingly

When you discover the high-value and high-calorie treats that motivate your dog the most, use them sparingly. This way, you can get the most play and engagement from your dog for the lowest calorie intake possible.

Put the best treats further into the toy, so your dog has to shake out a lot less desirable stuff to get to it. You can also smear a small amount of something highly desirable on a lot of vegetables or kibble, in order to make all of the fillings more desirable.

Measure food and treats

The only way you’ll know how much you are feeding your dog is to measure carefully. If you are feeding your dog their entire meal from the food toy, measure out the correct amount to make sure you only feed as much as you should. It is also a good idea to set aside the treats that you will put in a food toy, so that you know you aren’t giving too many.

Choose active toys

All food distributing toys make your dog work for their meal, but some make your dog work more than others. Toys that roll around and require your dog to chase, push, and throw are more likely to give your dog a workout than toys that work when your dog lies down and chews on them.

If you want your dog to lose weight or keep off the pounds while they play with their toy, choose a toy that moves around a lot and give your dog room to play with it.

Use Food Toys To Prevent Begging And Resource Guarding

Food distributing toys reduce some of the intensity and pressure of mealtimes, which can prevent and eliminate problems that arise around feeding. While a food toy is not a quick fix to eliminate begging or resource guarding, they can change the way your dog thinks about how they get their food.

Because food toys take time to deliver the food, your dog will have a harder time maintaining a high level of intensity around feeding. Your dog can only maintain an intense state for a certain amount of time. They can guard a bowl of food until they finish eating it, but it is harder to maintain a guarding stance over a food toy for an extended amount of time.

Furthermore, your dog may realize that you can help them get food out of their food toy. By shaking the toy before you give it to your dog, you can show them that you can remove more food than them, which may inspire them to ask you for help, instead of guarding the food from you.

Keeping Things Clean

The cleanliness problem in food distributing toys is right in the name. These toys are meant to hold food, so whether dry food shoots out of the toy and ends up under the furniture or in the carpets, or wet food gets all over the furniture or floor, there are a couple of ways your dog can make a mess of your house using their food toy.

Furthermore, hard plastic toys can scratch or dent flooring, especially if your dog has a habit of dropping the toy off of furniture or down the stairs. One important point is to be careful that you don’t use any harsh cleaners in the room in which your dog will play with their food toy, since they will be licking the floor in order to pick up food.

Here are a few techniques for using food distributing toys without making a mess of your home.

Avoiding kibble under furniture

If your dog enjoys playing with an active food distributing toy that tends to send kibble flying, there are a few things that you can do to keep the kibble or the toy itself from ending up underneath your furniture.

Restrict access to one or two rooms, so that you can dog-proof those spaces. Even if you want your dog to have plenty of room to run around and be active with a toy, there is a limit to how much space you need. As long as your dog has room to walk around and chase and roll the toy, they will have enough room to get exercise using their food distributing toy.

You can also get specially made bumpers that go underneath your furniture, to keep kibble or toys from rolling underneath, or you can make your own bumpers, using wood or PVC. Simply place your bumper a couple of inches back underneath the furniture, so that it won’t be visible from above, but will keep kibble and toys within reach of your dog.

If your dog is scratching the floor, you can use interconnecting foam mats made for children’s rooms or an area rug, in order to prevent damage. Most dogs prefer playing on a surface that their nails can easily grip, so if you provide an area rug or a foam mat, it is likely that your dog will restrict play to that area.

If your dog plays with their food distributing toy in their crate, you can use a crate liner around the inside or outside of the crate, to keep kibble from flying out of the crate, making a mess, and frustrating your dog.

Getting Your Dog Interested

Your dog may not intuitively understand what they are supposed to do with a food dispensing toy when you first give it to them. Most puppies take to food toys effortlessly, since they are already exploring everything with their mouths, but older dogs may be unsure about how to engage with this new device.

You can demonstrate to your dog how to get food out of a toy until they get the idea. Use high-value treats at first, to encourage your dog to engage with the toy. It is a good idea to choose an easier food dispensing toy that makes the food clearly visible, in the beginning, to get your dog’s attention.

What Food-Dispensing Toys Can’t do

Food dispensing toys do a lot of great things for your dog, but they can’t do everything. They should not be used to replace any of the essentials needed in a healthy, happy dog’s life, like physical exercise, interactive play with you, and social engagement with other dogs.

Toys can’t make up for extremely long periods that your dog is crated or left alone and they won’t do anything to alleviate severe separation anxiety.