TulsaPets Magazine March 2021

40 TulsaPets • March/April 2021 TRAINING TIP Use Food Delivery Toys WRITTEN BY: Mary Green, CPDT-KA, CDBC, CNWI O ne sometimes overlooked aspect of dog training is that of helping a dog to self-soothe or settle down on her own. Food delivery toys are a wonderful tool for teaching this important lesson. A food delivery toy is different from a chew toy. It is a safe vessel that when filled with kibble or yummy concoctions creates a situation where your dog must work to get the food from it. You put a stuffed food toy in with a dog in a crate or other confinement. For a puppy, we like to use the rule of 3’s when it comes to their meals. Taking into consideration your puppy’s daily intake of food, you should use one-third of it to hand-feed for behavior, one-third allowing her to eat from her bowl and one-third in a food delivery toy given while in confinement. When you’re working from home, sometimes you need a break from an active dog—that’s a great time to use a food delivery toy your dog can enjoy. You can do this daily, weekly or whenever you want to do something special for her. A food delivery toy can also be helpful in husbandry situations, like nail trimming. We especially like a Licki-Mat for baths and nail trimming. If you have seen a video where a guy wraps cling wrap around his head and smears peanut butter on it to distract his dog while trimming nails, DON’T DO IT. That is an accident waiting to happen and is cringe-worthy to all good dog trainers. A snuffle mat, or snuffle ball, is another type of food delivery toy, but it is not chewable. This is one of our favorite tools to slow down a dog that eats too fast. If you have a multiple-dog household, if your dogs have any resource guarding, you must use serious management of food delivery toys. Use them only when dogs are confined and cannot access each other, and remove empty toys. If your dog shows any resource-guarding behavior, be sure to remove the dog from the toy—don’t remove the toy from the dog! Here are some of our favorite food delivery toys. Note, when I list it as “non-chewable,” it is not meant to be chewed, but the dogs will chew it because they don’t read fine print. Kong® toy: chewable, stuffable, easily washed. Many sizes and varieties for different chew styles. Toppl® toy: chewable, stuffable, easily washed. Limited sizes available. Not as durable as Kong (in our chew-test household). KongWobbler: non-chewable, kibble only. Busy Buddy Kibble Nibble: non-chewable, kibble only. Bob-a-Lot: non-chewable, kibble only. Snuffle Mat/Snuffle Ball: These are easy to make at home. You need about a yard of fleece. For the mat, you need something like a dish mat (with holes in it), and for the ball, a Hol-ee Roller toy works best. Google “DIY snuffle mat” for directions. Licki-Mat: This is a silicone mat with grooves that will hold smearable treats, such as spray cheese, peanut butter (be sure there is no xylitol in it), canned pet food, etc. The dog can lick the product from the mat while you attend to his nails, baths, etc. There are lots of recipes for food toy stuffing that are great for your pup. Some may be mess- ier than others. We like to make up a bunch and freeze them so that they are handy when we need them.