Every morning when I leave for work, I do the basic things one does when leaving the house: turning off all the lights, closing all the doors, grabbing my keys, and singing Sisqo to my dog.
"Ike," I say, "Bring me your kong-ka-kong-kong kong." Which begins a 5 minute long routine in which I dance around the house stuffing treats into the kong. I'm pretty sure this is a perfectly legitimate reason to be late for work every morning.
(By the way, if you don't have a dog and you're jealous of my excuse to bust out The Thong Song, this also works with tongs. As in, "Hey Y, please hand me the tong-ta-tong-tong tongs.")
The real point of this post (not that Sisqo isn't a great topic of conversation) is that I'm curious how your dog eventually removes his treats from his Kong. Call me a nerd, but I think it's fascinating to watch dogs solve problems.
If you're not familiar with the Kong, it's a heavy duty dog toy with a space in the middle that you can wedge a treat into. It's supposed to keep your dog busy.
Ike used to drop his Kong on the floor until the treat was dislodged and slipped out. But he's figured out recently, genius that he is, that he can bite down as hard as he can on the Kong until the treat breaks and crumbles out.
They don't call him Scholarly Ike for nothing.
What about your dogs? What's their strategy?
I haven't used the kong in a while. But I used to make it pretty tough on poor Chase. I'd mix his kibble with plain yogourt, stuff the kong and freeze it overnight. Then he'd lick and lick and lick, with a look of rapture on his face.
ReplyDeleteWe give Buster a Kong every morning too! (Although I've never busted out in the Kong Song - might have to try that) His best technique is dropping it on the floor until everything falls out or comes loose. He also has a strangely long tongue, so a lot of the time he has no technique except for "lick."
ReplyDeleteI've never thought of freezing it though! That's a great idea - we usually use the peanut butter Kong filling on top of some treats - we go through that stuff so quickly!
We use peanut butter in our dogs' kongs, so there's this divine hour where we get to listen to them slurping loudly and the whole house smells like peanut butter and slobber. Oh, did I say divine? I meant disgusting. I do like to make my little buddies happy though, and there's nothing they like more than a PBKong!
ReplyDeletehaha I'm going to have the Kong-song in my head for the rest of the day!
ReplyDeletePretty sure Miley just sleeps.all.day.long. House-watching while the 'rents are gone is taxing...or so she says ;)
our dog literally chewed it up in one day.
ReplyDeleteIke is cute! We stuff Bunny's Kong with peanut butter. She tries to lick it out for about 2 minutes, and then gives up and walks away. What can I say? We've raised an incredibly lazy fur baby.
ReplyDeleteSwammy tries to get it out is usually unsuccessful and then barks at it hoping the treat will somehow end up in her mouth.
ReplyDeleteIke, you're so clever! Ginger has become quite expert at holding hers down with one paw and working things out with her tongue, but she has been known to drop the kong to dislodge the treat. And yes, this our evening entertainment...
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