Our chocolate female baby comes home in a week! I am looking for recipes for filling kongs for her. Got any good ideas for us? Thanks Deb
Hi there, you will get a few ideas from this board there are lots of things to use ranging from veggies to meats and fish with plenty of other things in between.You are doing right to stay away from the tubes of ready made fillings ,they are expensive and I'm sure home made is healthier.!I used to make up a weekly batch with steamed and roast chicken,dry and soaked kibble,sardines and a dash of the oil and various Fish4dogs treats....quite a production line!I had a lingering ear issue so Dexter was put on a very restricted diet to check if he was allergic to anything and he had to just have his kongs stuffed with kibble...he enjoyed them just as much and was just as enthusiatic about them as he was when I was using the other things so I've mainly stayed with that now... I would say a few things , with a puppy to start off easy for her,pop something into a puppy kong that will get her interested and that she can get to easily AND don't worry about freezing them at the moment they will be too difficult for her to crunch through...time will come soon enough when they won't be though. Puppies tummies can be quite sensitive especially during the settling in period so I wouldn't experiment too much straight away,you can get more adventurous when she has settled in.Enjoy all your planning for her arrival . Best Wishes Angela x
Hello and welcome to the forum. Do you have a name for your girl yet? We love to see pictures, so if you have any now, please post them! And definitely once you have her home There's a long thread here with lots of ideas for filling kongs: http://thelabradorforum.com/threads/stuffed-kongs.5133/ My two worked out frozen kongs very quickly, but I know some struggle, so are better being started off on unfrozen ones and gradually introducing frozen. I now pretty much always use soaked kibble with a tin of sardines mixed through. I make enough to fill six large and four medium kongs from one tin of sardines. I sometimes use raw mince, too (beef, pork, turkey or a mixture), which would also be good to start with because it will stay in the kong unfrozen. Cooked rice and chicken mince would make a good introduction for a puppy, because it is gentle on the tummy. Try to make the kongs interesting to start with and then you can gradually make them less interesting over time. Kongs are a real life-saver, so it's worth making them really exciting to start with, to get them hooked
There is a WHOLE THREAD on stuffed Kong fillings Check out the ideas here. For Christmas, we had fun with the Fish4Dogs sample packs (The ones for £4 including postage) stuffing Kongs with the Mousse and the small bite kibble - went down a storm! Our standby is a bit of mashed banana and usual kibble though - always have some over-ripe bananas in the house Oops! Snowbunny beat me to it - I was busy correcting typos and didn't notice her post!
Hi and welcome to the forum. I have to admit Juno has never had a stuffed kong in her life and has always happily settled when left alone with just a nylabone. When left even now she has her nylabone (still the same puppy one) but its very much just a symbol that she will be alone for a while. She's never chewed anything either
I fill the bottom half with kibble then make a plug with various thing I have to hand. Organic peanut butter, humours, yoghurt. Last week end while baby silting my niece, I pushed the remaining half of her banana into the hole of the kong. Kept them both happy for long enough for me to sit down for a moment with a cup of tea!
Thank you everybody for your advice, especially about not freezing the kongs for the first while. Looks like most of the members live in Scotland and England? I live on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and Labs are one of the most popular breeds. 2 more days for Purdy to come home!!
Stupid question - but if I am using sweet potato in the kong do I peel it before steaming and mashing? Also how long does it take to steam (in chunks like ordinary potato I assume)? You can tell I'm not keen on sweet potato myself .
I have beed reading that many of you put canned sardines into the kong chewer. I am a great fan of sardines, so this sounds really delicious (for Gaston I mean), I think the canned sardines in oil or tomato sauce would be great too, nevertheless I am wondering about the fish bones, aren't these a problem ? Do I just mash the sardine and stick it into his chew kongs ? Thanks.
I worried about this too and pulled out as many bones as I could find when she was a puppy. I read online they are fine, but for a puppy I worried...I mash up and mix with kibble and put into a kong. For the puppy stage, I only used sardines in water as she had a sensitive tummy.
Tinned sardine bones are so soft, I can't imagine having a problem with them. Like Ashley, I also mixed the sardines with soaked kibble - sardines are pretty calorific and very strong flavoured so you don't need a lot mixed with the kibble to make an exciting tasty treat.
