Harrison and the Puzzles: The Wobblers

Harrison and I moved onto our next puzzle last night. At first I was just going to use the JW Treat Tower. However, I found out that with the size of kibble that I have it just fell out as I tried to load it. And that was adjusting the hole to its smallest size. It's made for a more average size kibble and it's not made to hold the volume of kibble that Harrison eats. It would be great for a 10# dog but not so much for a 30# dog.

So I just went to the closet and grabbed a 2nd wobbler style toy: the Busy Buddy Magic Mushroom. This one is my very favorite of all the wobblers that I have and I think I have about 4 types. What is great about it is it's easy to load and the holes that the kibble come out of are adjustable. You can also load a full meal in it easily. But the very best thing about it is that it requires a bit more thinking than your basic wobbler. You don't just roll it around and collect the kibble as it falls out. The mushroom has to be fully turned up on the cap end for the kibble to really come out in any volume. But then they have to roll it back over to be able to get the kibble out of the mushroom cap. The longer they play, you can start to see them figuring out how to increase the kibble and they stay pretty fascinated.

Harrison worked on the Treat Tower for a bit initially but tons of kibble came out if his nose even touched it. He quickly emptied that out and then moved on to the Magic Mushroom.

It was really fun watching him with the mushroom. I loved seeing him puzzle through the problem - looking at all the kibble in there and wondering how to get it out.

At one point I had to stop the game for a bit and take Frodo downstairs. By him being able to see what was going on, it set both him and Harrison up to engage in behaviors that I don't want to see - Frodo barking, whining and trying to steal food by sticking paws through the expen, and then Harrison snapping at him (resource guarding) for trying to steal his cool toy. I find it's always easier to change the environment a bit instead of trying to get them to change a behavior that comes naturally in a certain setting - in this case the setting being a dog on each side of a gate.

After that Harrison was back at it. Enjoying his dinner for a full ten minutes as he worked the puzzles. Stayed tuned for our next puzzle test...