What's in your Kongs?

With the amount of crating, rotating, and cruelly abandoning dogs (in the comfort of their own home, for hours at a time) we do around here, we use a lot of Kongs. I keep them stockpiled in the freezer, and I imagine the dogs are a bit like grade schoolers opening their lunches at school as they empty their kongs. "Peanut butter and rice again? Oh wait, there's cheez wiz in the bottom!"

Not gonna lie, my standard stuffing is dog biscuits and peanut butter because those won't mold or sprout new civilizations when I lose them under the furniture or forget about them in the sink for a few days. Currently I'm keeping better track of them to prevent resource issues, so the boys are getting some variety.

Brisbane won't gnaw or chomp his kongs, so he'll leave a plug of crud at the end unless I start by dumping in something dry like a bit of kibble or a broken biscuit or two. Ru is incapable of removing anything but the softest stuffing. Whatever I stuff the kongs with has to have enough value that the boys actually put in the effort to empty them.

I stuff kongs with peanut butter, kibble, broken up biscuits and dry cookies of all sorts, cooked rice, canned pumpkin, canned dog food, applesauce, and occasional squirts of canned spray cheez. What goes into kongs at your house?

Mostly dry kibble, wet food, peanut butter. Rider tends to get pumpkin as he's prone to getting chunky. Yogurt or raw meat if we have it. Sometimes frozen veggies. Really just depends on what is in the house.

:thumbup:


Too short.

That is gross and totally awesome.

For us it's usually wet food, peanut butter, dry kibble, occasional pumpkin because he has a sensitive stomach, chicken liver, dehydrated beef liver... I think that's mostly what he gets regularly. I try to change it up so that he doesn't get bored with it.

Merrick's Turducken, currently. Till I run out of cans.

I've also used:

Peanut Butter/Banana
Apples, bananas, carrots
Yogurt/apple/banana/carrot/blueberry/coconut oil puree.
Random stuff that's sitting in the fridge and is Roxie safe

I don't do Kongs often at all, and when I do I'm not creative. It's usually just frozen peanut butter +/- kibble mixed in there. Or I'll break up dry biscuits and fill it with those, and the original sized Buddy Biscuits are perfect for plugging the top. Despite how simple that version seems, that one actually takes Cajun longer to work out - I suppose it makes sense that oddly shaped biscuits are more difficult to get out vs. just licking out PB.

Pretty much just canned dog food.

I literally just put anything in that is dog-safe. Fable could not care less what she puts in her stomach, which makes it really easy for me to vary what I stuff her KONG with. I most often stuff it with kibble, peanut butter, and/or pumpkin (she gets pumpkin every night anyway because she has really loose stool without it), but she also loves boiled chicken, carrots, canned dog food, rice, and apple put in.

Wet, ground chicken (cooked)... stuffed into the kong and frozen.

But pretty much anything that is wet and tasty and can freeze solid.

Glad I'm not the only one who uses my dogs for their ancestral purpose: garbage disposal.

We actually kind of avoid cooking non-Briz-safe food at home because he's such an evil genius. Today he somehow managed to get half a pizza out of a pizza box while leaving the box undisturbed on the back of the stove.

Wet food. Cottage cheese. Yogurt. A bit of kibble thrown in there sometimes, and pumpkin if I'm feeling seasonal.

I don't pay too much close attention, I just keep a bunch of cans at the ready and stuff the Kongs with whatever is handy when I'm getting stuff ready at night before bed.

A bit of peanut butter in the end (sometimes). Add dog food, and optionally, anything else you want, hot dog pieces or so on.

Now add half a slice of cheese. Stand it up in a cup or something, so the big hole is up! Microwave for 10-15 seconds, melting the cheese. Let it cool.

You now have dog food coated in cheese. This is rather difficult to extract from the Kong.

Riley is the odd man out - he hates peanut butter. Murphy will eat anything except veggies. I usually layer with something crunchy on the bottom (dried liver bits, lamb lung, broken dog biscuits, etc), and layer with cubed beef roll, green cow tripe, dried lamb lung, cream cheese or yogurt. I've tried freezing but Riley ignores the kong until it thaws, then he drops it from the couch or tosses it around to bounce the stuffing out. Can't decide if he's really smart or really lazy...

I've just been doing peanut butter and kibble for the pup but she's been getting bored, I can tell. So I'll probably start doing some cheese whiz etc. I've just been reluctant to use cheese because if I'm home, the kongs seem to disappear and get lost or not found until weeks later. I found a kong the other day with rotten cheese in it probably from months ago and almost barfed.

Here's a link to a bunch of recipes that I found on line

http://dogs.thefuntimesguide.com/2006/02/dog_recipes_for_kong_chew_toys.php

Am I the only one who worries that the dog will get their bottom jaw stuck in the kong? I know I should get the next size down but the dogs never clean it out. I have never in all my years of dogs, given them a stuffed kong. We have one hanging around though and we end up playing fetch with it.

I need to look at getting a bunch of them. They would keep the crated dogs busy. But the other worry I have is I have BIG dogs and LITTLE dogs. I am not the one that turns out in the afternoon, my daughter does. Half the time she does not close the xpen gate so the big dogs steal the little dogs toys or chew hooves that I do not want my Danes having a chew hoof so I do not use those either. I can imagine a small kong with left over anything in the bottom and my dane swallowing it.

For me, it is just too much worry with my extreme dog size difference. But I wonder if I could figure something out. Maybe post a board there and say to remove the kongs before letting the littles out. Make a sign at work and hang it from the expen gate to pick up the toys and kongs if you forget to shut the gate.

My husband likes to give the big dogs the peanut butter jar when it is empty. One day it was one of the middle sizes instead of the big size that I normally get. I heard this clanging sound and my Parson puppy came downstairs with the peanut butter jar stuck on her head. She had licked it out and she could see thru it, she didnt act particularly worried that she had the jar stuck on her head. She just ran up to me and wanted me to take it off her head. It wasnt really tight and came off easily. Just puppy couldnt figure out how to get it off her head. It did not stop me from being furious with my husband for leaving the jar down and giving it to them. Thankfully he has not done it since.