Do you need something to keep your Great Dane busy?
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As a Great Dane owner, you know that toys are measured in minutes. Most soft toys with squeakers are 5-10 minute toys. The super tough toys may actually last hours or days. But eventually they are just a scattering of stuffing and a chewed up squeaker.
Like me, I imagine you also read all this stuff about keeping your dog happy and engaged by stimulating their minds with puzzle toys. I always have to ask how long is that going to last and do I want to risk spending that much money on on something that will end up in pieces in a matter of minutes? The answer is always ‘no’ which leaves me with stuffing peanut butter in a Kong.
I did break down once and tired one of the soft toy puzzles, where smaller stuffed toys fit in a larger one. The idea is the dog will pull the toys out of the holes when in actuality the dog will just rip apart the larger toy before destroying all the smaller ones. It at least lasted a few days.
Kong and Qwizl
In an effort to find something more engaging than licking peanut butter out of a Kong, I bought a Qwizl by West Paw. Other West Paw products have proved to be tough enough to withstand an aggressive chewer. In addition to being FDA-compliant, an extra bonus is that they are made from recycled toys. They will take back your used toys and make them into new ones.
This puzzle treat toy takes a little more thinking than the Kong. The idea is that by chewing the toy, the treat inside will break up and the pieces will fall out. The sausage treats I had were a perfect fit and it kept Martok busy for half the day. The problem became that he couldn’t get the treat out and ultimately he gave up. The treat was too soft and didn’t break up. Our other treats were too big to fit so I figured I would make some to fit.
Making the perfect sized treat for a Qwizl
- Find your favorite treat recipe or mix. I used Trader Joe’s BIY Dog Biscuit Mix and added bacon grease instead of oil to make it extra yummy.
- Roll out the dough. It took a couple tries but I figured out the right size, cut to that size and rolled the edges to make them into cylinders. I got two dozen treats from the mix.
- Bake and cool.
It worked! Martok is starting to figure out that chewing it works better than licking it. Overall it is keeping our Great Dane busy for much longer than the Kong and hopefully it is making him think a little more.
These links will take you straight to the Qwizl or Kong toys in this post. Make sure you get the largest size for both of them.
