Tricky Treat Balls Stimulate Puppy Minds but Watch Out

Author's Rating:

Pros: Good Value, Easy to Use, Durable, dogs love it

Cons: Problems with multiple dogs

The Bottom Line: 
I highly recommend the Omega Paw Tricky Treats food-dispensing interactive toy for entertaining puppies.

Author's Review
So you want an hour of freedom and an hour of puppy entertainment that doesn't involve you. Take half or all of your dog's kibble, the breakfast or evening serving, and empty it into Omega Paw's Tricky Treats.  Then let your dog attempt to work the food out.  What can be messy turns into an interactive puzzle for your dogs.  Just keep your feet up and out of the way. If you have two dogs, get two. 

Our pup's trainer strongly recommended the Buster Cube for entertaining and feeding our wild child. (She's no longer referred to as our little cutey.) I was doubtful, "What, put all of her food inside. Won't that mess up some important routines?"  None of the local pet stores in my part of Houston had a Buster Cube but I found Omega Paw's Tricky Treats ball.  I'm impressed. Pet toys have come a long way since my previous dogs were babies. 

This ball reminds me of the surface of the harvest moon. It's orange with lots of craters but only one crater dispenses food or treats. It's hard rubber with a hollow interior. When pushed with a nose on a hard-surface floor it rolls with unpredictable motion. It can easily hold a cup of large breed puppy kibble. It's tricky putting the food down the narrow hole but it can be done without a funnel.

The puzzle is getting the food out and your hungry puppy wants to get the food out. As it rolls food randomly falls out. Here's a piece, there's a piece, everywhere there's a piece of kibble.  Don't worry about any being left behind--my dog was very quick to grab them up. The first time she used this her response was hysterical. The learning curve was fairly high but she was quick to learn that pushing it around released some food. She watched and pounced as the ball spit out one more kibble. 

This keeps your dogs active while eating and since a few pieces tend to remain unreachable, this keeps dogs engaged in playing with the Tricky Treats ball until they're ready to snooze. Worn-out puppies are good puppies. 

The ball is 5 ½ inches in diameter. It's a hard rubber, not a high-impact plastic. The way this rolls reminds me of the wiggly giggly ball.  Rather than having the crying sound of the wiggly giggly, this just has the deliciously tempting sounds of food rolling around. This certainly helps with behavioral problems.

It's not noisy and the relatively soft surface doesn't scratch furniture although the blindly chasing puppy is so focused on this and not her surroundings she's likely to knock chairs and lamps over. I very much recommend only using this on hard surface floors that are clean and free of other debris lest you have a puppy eating all types of unknown objects. She has been dashing through the doggy door carrying this out to the driveway. We have gravel around the house along part of the driveway and it's amazing how similar some pebbles are to her kibbles.  It's necessary for me to also keep the driveway clean or just keep her inside with this. Don't use if you have a toddler in the house.

Emptying it took about an hour at first and half that time several weeks later. The time decreased with proficiency and improved strategy. It gets better every day. She rolls it with her nose, sometimes just a slight shove, then watches, snacks, and rolls again. (Sounds like my aunt at a one-armed bandit in her favorite casino.)  Sometimes she bats it completely across the room and dashes to where she predicts it will stop, then watches.  If nothing falls out she attempts a different approach.  She has learned to pick it up by gripping a large "crater" edge and flipping it. When the ball bounces on the hard floor more food comes out. (Some dogs are scary smart.) She now prefers to eat from the ball rather than her bowl.

Not only does this dispense treats over an extended time, which is good for dogs at risk for bloat (GDV), but this eliminates boredom, provides mental stimulation,  physical exercise, and entertains (all of us). One problem with this particular food-dispensing ball is that it cannot be opened to be cleaned. The only way to clean the inside is to fill it with water and shake until it seems clean. Drying, especially in our humid climate, is difficult. You also can't adjust the challenge level, however, she's far from bored with this. She's getting surprisingly fast at emptying her food. There could be problems with multiple dogs all wandering around the kitchen picking up food from just their treat balls. I suspect I'll look for a different approach to feeding this enthusiastic feeder when we have two dogs. I recommend using a traditional bowl when traveling - you just don't know what was tracked across the floor of motel rooms.

This is, so far, the best money I've spent on a puppy toy. I love watching her nudge it along.  Food-dispensing toys are proving invaluable for keeping my Labrador puppy, a little "Marley" girl, less interested in chewing arms, legs (mine and the furniture), rugs, and books, and more interested in watching the bouncing ball for food and treats. While I'm down rating a little for cleaning difficulty, I highly recommend the Omega Paw Tricky Treats food dispensing toy as a quieter version of the Buster Cube.


Updated:  After six months we replaced this treat ball with a new one. The original was getting scraped and worn and just needed replacing. Our puppy was now on adult kibbles for large breeds and the food hole seemed a little tight. I had noticed that Omega Paw's tricky treat ball had a slightly larger hole on some in the store and we picked up that version. The problem is that the hole releases too much food at one time and it has lost some of the challenge. I'm not sure how Omega Paws can address this problem but we are still using the newer one -  our girl just eats faster.