What is Reddit's opinion of PetSafe Busy Buddy Kibble Nibble Meal Dispensing Dog Toy, Small - PTY00-13739,purple?

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A food dispensing ball like this one: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B001F0RRUA/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_82zJCbKSG2S9B

It can fit a whole portion of food. Your dog should always do some work for his meals. It's good for mental stimulation and physical activity.

I'm curious, what kind of dog she is and how old? Chances are she probably could use a bit more exercise and/or interaction if she's getting in to trouble.

You can use your kong to feed her kibble–it doesn't just have to be treats! Soaking the food and freezing it or mixing it with a bit of plain yoghurt or pumpkin really prolongs it. You can also try food dispensing toys or just hid little bits around the room and have her "Go find it!" Gives her something to exercise her brain a bit and keep her occupied. My guy typically gets most of his food from this annoying thing and the rest of it from a frozen kong.

It sounds like maybe she'd benefit from some short training sessions in her routine (5-10 minutes once a day would be a good starting place.)

Our dog behaviorist suggested this:

PetSafe Busy Buddy Kibble Nibble... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001F0RRUA?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

And I was apprehensive because I make my own wet dog food for our guy. So I freeze it into kibble size pieces, takes him 45 minutes to eat. The best part of it is that the only way to chill him out is by making him think..Training, etc. Physical exercise is child's play for him. He needs a mental challenge and this item has been a game changer! Too bad I was too stubborn to try it until now! (She suggested it in February)

Aw, yay! Love that she is learning her commands so well and also has a play outlet :)

If you're looking for more ways for her to use her problem-solving skills -- we got one of our dogs a feeder like this (https://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-Kibble-Nibble-Dispensing-Medium/dp/B001F0RRUA) and it's an occasional use feeder that he loves since he has to "work" for his food. I highly recommend!

Getting my dog one of these helped a lot. He wouldn't eat while we were gone and was bored, so putting some cheerios in there got him to eat and got him some playtime. It's a lot easier when you know they're happy at least some of the time you're gone.

I have a whole variety I use to mix things up for mine. In addition to everyone else's great recommendations: Busy Buddy Kibble Nibble

Kongs are what we use the most. A large one filled with treats and a small one filled with either yogurt or peanut butter that has been frozen. We also have one of these that we use every now and then but he has gotten too good with it.

Correct answers above.

Also, for what it's worth, I've been dealing with some separation anxiety/mild OCD behaviors in my Newfie for the past several months. According to the behaviorist, it is often out of boredom and lack of mental stimulation. Physical exertion isn't nearly as effective as mental stimulation, so on his list of things to try:

• Walking a different route - the change in smells and sights really help
• Playing with other dogs - social interaction takes a lot of attention and problem-solving energy for most dogs
• Free-play and games - especially things like tug and fetch work their brain (i.e. "how do I get this rope away from him?" and "Where is she going to throw the ball? WHERE?!")
• Treat- and food-dispensing toys - I've got one of these and it works wonders. It takes her 20 minutes to get her dinner out of it, and it's fun for her. The drawback is that it's noisy, so I can only do it when the downstairs neighbor isn't home.

I use this one for Jake. Keeps him busy for about an hour. I just put a regular meal's worth of food in it, so every 4th or 5th meal he has to work for it. Seems to tire him out pretty well.

I don't have any good interactive toys to play with when you're not home, but I do feed my boy entirely using interactive toys so it takes him 15-25 min of playing with the toy to get all his food. I alternate diff. toys for each meal. He loves it. I've also stuffed some of them w/ healthy treats and hidden them before I leave, so that's an option too for you I guess. Our favorites are:

1) large PetSafe Busy Buddy meal dispensing toy - https://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-Kibble-Nibble-Dispensing-Medium/dp/B001F0RRUA

This is his current favorite, I learned from my Kong Wobbler lesson (see below) and superglued it shut as soon as I got it. I can still get all of his food into the toy using the hole on the top.

2) this "Soft" cube feeder (it's actually a very durable plastic but it doesn't make noise when he rolls it all over the floor like the harder plastics): https://www.amazon.com/Kruuse-Buster-Soft-Cube-Feeder/dp/B003XLEM5C,

3) the large JW treat puzzler amaze-a-ball: https://www.amazon.com/JW-Pet-Company-Puzzler-Medium/dp/B00106WXSA

4) the large Kong wobbler (until he figured out how to open it after several months, then he destroyed it and every other one I've gotten him) https://www.amazon.com/KONG-PW1-Wobbler-Large/dp/B003ALMW0M

5) Kong Stuff-a-Ball -the large doesn't hold all his food, but it's a great toy to put treats/fruit/carrots in and hide for him to find and work to get them out

He also really liked the Magic Mushroom, until he figured out how to open it and then destroyed it by chewing on the plastic. Also it's hard plastic and very loud on my hard floors.

I definitely agree with /u/KestrelLowing, and this is something you can practice at home.

I didn't own a real agility jump until recently (I have a mini schnauzer mix taking agility classes) and we learned jumps in class months ago. For many weeks we didn't set a real bar at all. In order to train jumping, we taught it using jump shaping, which is basically throwing a reward forward to get the dog to drive through two stanchion-type objects that represent the jump poles. Since we didn't own any equipment, we taught jump shaping using traffic cones at a park, two kitchen chairs with the backs facing each other, pretty much anything that was a reasonable distance away from each other and were identical, no actual jumps or a bar/broom on the floor. After doing this for awhile, we could add a verbal ("jump" or "over") to designate the behavior, and then over time add height to the jumps - a small height like 4" that your dog couldn't get under if they tried.

In general, depending on the height, the average miniature schnauzer should be jumping only 10"-12" (maybe 14" if they are tall) at final height, and that's for dogs that are doing competition and are conditioned with proper jump form, so also be careful that the obstacles at the park aren't too tall.

For the paw, sometimes dogs have an issue with it. I couldn't teach my dog shake or paw for a long time until she learned how to sort of do it on her own! She is super food motivated as well, so what I ended up doing was teaching her how to use a ball food toy (we used this one but there are others). Some dogs will use their nose to learn how to do it, but many also use their paws on it. My dog learned how to use her paws on it, and subsequently learned how to paw at things (at my leg, at her water bowl) for rewards and after benching learning paw for awhile, we picked it back up after she showed some ability to use her paw on the toy, and were able to teach it within minutes.