I give Penny things like jumbones, dentasticks, wonky chomps etc and I wish they would last a bit longer. She has a dentastick everyday for going into her bed when I leave for work, and I know it only takes her about 10seconds to finished it. A jumbone or wonkychomp may last 30seconds, but still I'm pretty sure she's finished them before I've even locked the front door. I wish they would last her a bit longer as I feel bad that she's there with nothing to do - she has toys etc with her but I'm pretty sure she doesn't play with them. She has two nylabones which I've only ever seen her have a go at once, and a stag bar that she will occasionally have a nibble at but only when we are at home and like once a fortnight. I could do her a frozen kong but I'm reluctant to introduce wet food as she's never had it before and I don't want to get into the habit of giving it to her - it's so convenient to feed purely dry kibble I don't want her going off of it. Also I've spent years stuffing and freezing an average of 20 kongs a day when I was at the kennels and I'm kind of sick of the sight of them!!! Lol She loves rawhide chews and pizzles but I would never leave her with one unsupervised as I've had to pull bits out of her mouth on occasion as she will try to swallow bits that are too big! So has anyone ever tried freezing a dentastick or jumbone or similar? Do you reckon it would work and last a bit longer?
Re: Freezing treats I like the vegetable hedgehogs (or toothbrushes) if you know what I mean. I freeze them in summer. Often filled with banana or carrot, but not necessary. I guess they are pricey though - our local petshop charges £2.80 each!! You can get them cheaper though. I reckon they are pretty safe.
Re: Freezing treats I think they'd possibly just go brittle and she'd bite off and swallow bigger pieces. But you can always experiment and watch her eat one She might get an extra 10 seconds or so out of it. What about getting a kibble dispenser toy and putting some of her kibble in that so she has something to move onto after the dentabone.
Re: Freezing treats I do wonder about your concern about kibble in kongs - I think it's very different feeding soaked, frozen kibble in kongs from switching partly to wet food. If eating a Jumbone (have you seen the calories in those? Gosh, so envious of people with thin dogs! ;D ;D ;D ) doesn't put her off kibble.... Kongs are fantastic things, particularly if you have to leave a dog, I think.
Re: Freezing treats Hmmm... I am loath to use an amount of her daily kibble because she gets so little as it is! She needs her brekfast as she has a lot of joint supplements and occasional metacam which needs to be taken with food. I do like the idea of an activity ball or kong wobbler as I know how good they are... I will try freezing a dentastick and just see what happens I think. I suppose I could always just leave her with a carrot or something... But I suspect that would be demolished in less time than a jumbone, she loves them!!
Re: Freezing treats I use those softer puppy kongs, and add a couple ice cubes, then literally about 5 pieces of kibble but smear either peanut butter or Light Philadelphia around the inside, then I freeze them and give a couple to Benson when he is left in the kitchen. He loves those!
Re: Freezing treats As I write Bess is working her way through a frozen kong; I use natural yoghurt mixed with a bit of fish (sardine, tuna) to flavour. They last her much longer than other chews and I have the possibly misguided notion that the probiotics in the yoghurt will do her good and not add too many calories. Alice
Re: Freezing treats I put a kong in a plastic cup, put a few pieces of kibble (only 4 or 5) from her food allowance in the kong. Then pour in hot water, wait for 10 mins, drain off, put a smear of honey or peanut butter at the top then freeze. They last Tatze (15 months) 20 minutes and Gypsy (11 weeks) well over half an hour
Re: Freezing treats We keep a stash of rice bones in the freezer. I take them to work with me where there is no freezer so she gets them when they're not rock hard. At 4.5 months, they last Holly about 30 minutes or so. Non frozen ones are gone in less than 10. She does get a little messy with but much less now she's older they keep her out of trouble.
Re: Freezing treats Couldn't you put Penny's joint supplement and Matacam in with the kibble whilst it is wet and before freezing. I understand you being fed up with stuffing Kongs, Molly has most of her food in them, so I stuff about 5 a day, but she gets great pleasure from her Kong, it makes the mealtime last and best of all it gives me a bit of peace. Like now
Re: Freezing treats [quote author=Penny+Me link=topic=7247.msg100029#msg100029 date=1407396824] Hmmm... I am loath to use an amount of her daily kibble because she gets so little as it is! She needs her brekfast as she has a lot of joint supplements and occasional metacam which needs to be taken with food. I suppose I could always just leave her with a carrot or something... But I suspect that would be demolished in less time than a jumbone, she loves them!! [/quote] It does depend on what size jumbone you are feeding - and I'm assuming they are the pedigree jumbones. If you are feeding the large pedigree ones, the feeding recommendation is: "Each Bone will provide 49% of the daily energy a 35kg dog needs. Please reduce your dog's main meal accordingly." And the guidelines also say to feed only one bone a week. So if you didn't feed jumbones, you could feed a lot more kibble in kongs and I would say that's a better balanced diet... (I had better declare that I'm pretty biased against jumbones - I think they have a stupid amount of calories in them).
Re: Freezing treats Yes she only gets a jumbone about once a week - usually at the weekend, and I mostly give her a medium one as the large ones go right through her lol. She gets a dentastick daily though.
Re: Freezing treats Lauren, you could try one of those Wobble Kongs (I think that's what their called :) you can put some of Penny's daily kibble in it and they have to move it around in order for the kibble to drop out, it might take her a while and keep her occupied. I have to say I gave up on the Dentastixs a long time ago as not only are they ridiculously expensive but they can't possibly be doing the job of cleaning teeth as they lasted under 10 seconds here. I now use dried fish skin sticks, fish skin cubes, rolled fish skins etc. which are 100% natural and help keep teeth cleaner and obviously very healthy too. xx
Re: Freezing treats I used to use Dentastix but Waitrose (JulieT!) now sell fish skins and it takes the dogs a wee while to eat one a night and I am sure it cleans their teeth better.
