{"id":1190,"date":"2012-03-27T17:21:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T06:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2021-08-02T17:32:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T07:02:09","slug":"praise-kongs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/puppies\/praise-kongs\/","title":{"rendered":"Praise Kongs!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See\u00a0index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t have to be at Ian Dunbar\u2019s seminar long to understand that Dunbar had a pretty big crush on Kong toys!\u00a0 To me, I think he was a bit biased \u2013 I think there\u2019s a bunch of other chew toys highly appropriate for a similar purpose.\u00a0 But Dunbar mostly focused his attention on Kongs.<\/p>\n

He suggested that every household, especially puppy households, should have Kongs, and advised that the largest dog in the household should determine the size of the Kong.<\/p>\n

\"Brittany<\/a>

Photo \u00a9 Ruthless Photos.<\/p><\/div>\n

Why use Kongs?<\/span><\/p>\n

Dogs who eat Kongs will automatically perform a bunch of desirable behaviours (and cease to display undesirable behaviours) by being given a Kong that serves as a distraction of sorts.<\/p>\n

When dogs are eating from a Kong, they can\u2019t be barking, they\u2019re normally laying down, and the motion of eating decreases their stress.\u00a0 Eating from a food toy increases a dog\u2019s confidence in being alone.\u00a0 Basically, they reduce behaviour problems by training your dog to create \u2018good habits\u2019.<\/p>\n

Dunbar also argues that Kongs increase food drive, and encourage the dog to only chew \u2018food wielding items\u2019 (summed up in, \u201cWhy would I chew the furniture? It doesn\u2019t have food in it.\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Teaching a dog to use a Kong<\/span><\/p>\n

Dunbar advocates for dogs to be fed exclusively from a Kong, so there is no other options \u2013 the dog has to eat from the Kong or he doesn\u2019t eat!\u00a0 Dogs can also be encouraged to eat from a Kong by stuffing it with awesome stuff (like bacon) and \u2018teasing\u2019 the dog with the awesome Kong. \u00a0Kongs, when used consistently, become regular and \u2018normal\u2019 for your dog to eat from<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My Thoughts<\/span><\/p>\n

To me, the best reason to use Kong toys is in the statement, \u201cWhy would I chew the furniture? It doesn\u2019t have food in it!\u201d\u00a0 I can really see dogs embracing this logic.\u00a0 I plan to purchase food dispensing toys for future litters and encourage puppy buyers to have them.<\/p>\n

I have hygiene concerns.\u00a0 Food toys are close to impossible to get all food out of.\u00a0 Even with soaking and toothbrushes, they get pretty gross.<\/p>\n

Food dispensing toys aren\u2019t great for dispensing raw food.\u00a0 And are even harder to clean when there\u2019s a chicken neck stuck in them!<\/p>\n

I have concerns about pet owners feeding too much because of their obsession with keeping food toys \u2018full\u2019.\u00a0 Personally, I have strategies in mind where I could stop this happening, but I have less faith in \u2018the general public\u2019 who have fat dogs anyway.\u00a0 Along with this, I have concerns that dogs will \u2018get over\u2019 food and not value it as a reward in training any longer.<\/p>\n

Dunbar didn\u2019t explain how a breeder would go weaning a puppy onto Kongs.\u00a0 Some puppies are really annoying to get onto solids pushed into their mouth, let alone solids that are pushed into a toy and they have to work on.\u00a0 5 week old puppies aren\u2019t the type that you can fast for a couple of days, hoping their appetite spurs them to eat from a toy.\u00a0 Plus, you also get puppies that are not food motivated and are too lazy to eat from a bowl, let along working from it from a toy.\u00a0 Though my border terrier puppies would probably do quite okay on food toys, I have apprehension that other breeds, with poorer appetites, would thrive when putting so much work into getting food in the first place.<\/p>\n

But, I am willing to experiment and give it a go, and I will be using food toys for my next litter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ian Dunbar is a big fan of Kong toys for preventing behavioural problems in puppies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[254,6],"tags":[395,393,394,12,11,376,396,390,375,388,389,21,20,391,392,53],"class_list":["post-1190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-training-dog-behaviour","category-puppies","tag-chew-toy","tag-chew-toy-training","tag-chew-toys","tag-dog","tag-dogs","tag-dunbar","tag-food","tag-food-toys","tag-ian-dunbar","tag-kong","tag-kongs","tag-puppies-2","tag-puppy","tag-toy","tag-toys","tag-training"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4924,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/4924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}