Suggest a good "Keep the dog busy" toy?

I agree with those reviews on the bumble ball. It didn’t take long before my beagle figured out how to trap it and try to chew the nubs off.

what about this ball catapult?

Mine are quite happy chasing the pool robot for hours on end.

There is a dog fence around the pool so they can’t actually get it.

So my wife gets Blackjack Squirrels in a Stump. It says right on the box that a dog will have Hours Of Fun. We put the stump full of squirrels down and Blackjack sticks his snout in and with some paw grasping to hold it down pulls out all three squirrels. What fun! We wrestle the squirrels away and stuff them back into the stump. Once again Blackjack sticks his snout right into the stump and gets the squirrels out with minium struggle. Then he picks up the stump, runs under the table, and tears it to shreds. Total fun time, 10, maybe 15 minutes tops.

So I thought I’d let you know the outcome. . .

We got him a bumble ball and a Zany ball. The gist of it all is . . . he’s TERRIFIED of both of them. LOL! He won’t go anywhere near them if they are turned on. If I roll one of them, (turned off) and if it’s still within about six feet of me, he will jog after it, tag it with his nose, and then jog back to me, but he won’t pick them up. :rolleyes:

The blue pig however, is his new best friend. (Who knew?!?) Which was especially surprising because to the human nose it smells exactly like the Kong. I wish they had a .wav of the noise it makes; it sounds almost exactly like a real hog. Very loud, low sound.

tl:dr Canines is crazy. :smiley:

I have a 75-pound American Bulldog with too much time on her paws, so I enrolled her in a Toy Testing program. I shop for toys based on their toughness ratings and make a wish list. Once a month, they send me a toy for 50% off, plus shipping, and I give it to the dog. After she plays with it a while, I have to go back on and rate the toys.

They’ve got several stuffed toys with squeakers in them. My girly also is very fond of Cuz toys, which may smell too rubbery to your poodle, or not, but they’ve got great squeakers that are difficult to remove.

I also go to the produce section of my local supermarket and buy raw beef soup bones and stash 'em in the freezer. It only takes my dog about an hour to chew off all the marrow and meaty bits, even frozen solid, but I would imagine one of those would keep a small poodle busy for several hours, especially if you give it to her frozen. (Actually, my dog just stares at it and whines until it’s thawed out a little. As soon as it starts to stink, then she’ll dig in.)

If you can find something like a Kong that doesn’t smell so rubbery, stuff with low-fat cream cheese. Peanut butter is loaded with sugar and is a bit high in fat – people shouldn’t even really eat it, nevermind dogs. I just gave my dog a Kong stuffed with broken carrot bits and plugged with cream cheese. If I’d had time, I’d pre-stuff my Kongs and stash 'em in the freezer – it takes the dogs a little longer to get all the goodies out when the toy is frozen shut.