Tonight I discovered a Kong mixture that stumped Rio and eventually made him give up–Shayne has now been working on it for 2 hours and there is still some left inside. So what exactly has given my dogs hours and hours of entertainment? Well, I lined the Kong with peanut butter and then jammed in 1/2 a Wendy’s Jr. Cheeseburger that I ripped into pieces. The peanut butter adhered to the bun to make it difficult to begin with and then the bun, it seems, became rather mushy as it got licked and became quite stuck. Both dogs licked, chewed, and threw the Kong all around and there is still a little mushy cheeseburger left in the top! It’s been awesome! Because it’s stuffed with something so high value (cheeseburger) both dogs spent a good 2 hours each working on it… that’s 4 hours of piece and quiet (other than the sometimes wonky sounds of dogs licking out Kongs). Ooo just as I write this, there is breaking news… Shayne has left the Kong and Rio is back at it!
I got to thinking about the other concoctions I use to stuff Kongs. Now, I almost always feed my Kongs frozen because I get more bang for my buck so to speak–a frozen kong simply lasts longer. So, here are some of my favorite Kong mixtures that I use for the monsters.
Simple Kong Stuffers
- Peanut Butter (smeared or stuffed)
- Cottage Cheese (stuffed)
- Greek Yogurt (stuffed)
- Canned Premium Dog Food (smeared or stuffed)
- Raw ground meat (smeared or stuffed)
- Kibble (capped with peanut butter to keep it inside the Kong)
- Canned Pumpkin (smeared)
Two-ingredient Kong Stuffers
(pick one from column A one from column B)
A) Peanut Butter B) Kibble
Greek Yogurt (or plain yogurt) Shredded/cooked chicken
Cottage Cheese String cheese/cheese cube/etc
Cream Cheese Left over meat (steak/pork/tuna)
Applesauce (may need to cap w/ PB) Banana/Blueberry/Strawberry/etc.
Canned Pumpkin Small/broken normal dog treats
Canned Dog Food Green beans/carrots/peas/etc.
Favorite Multi-ingredient recipes
The “I almost eat this before I fill the kongs….”
- Peanut butter (melted a little in the microwave)
- Greek Yogurt (added to the melted PB)
- Mashed Banana (add to the PB and Yogurt)
- Dash of Honey
Kitchen Sink (Quite literally whatever I have handy just gets thrown in the mix)
- Greek Yogurt
- String cheese
- Kibble
- Peas/Beans
- Little bit of canned pumpkin
- Fruit I have handy
Apples and Peanut Butter, Oh My!
- Applesauce
- Melted peanut butter
- Mashed banana
- Kibble (or other dry treats)
CHEEEZY Dreams
- Cottage Cheese (put in the Kong first)
- A Little Melted Cheez Whiz (canned cheese)–or Velveeta
- Cream Cheese (mixed into the melted cheez whiz)
- Diced String cheese (mixed into the cream cheese/cheez whiz mixture)
Sweet Pumpkin
- Greek Yogurt
- Smashed Banana
- Melted Peanut Butter
- Canned Pumpkin
Meaty Meat
- Cooked Chicken (chopped up)
- Cooked Steak (chopped up)
- Cooked Pork (chopped up)
- Package of Tuna
- Lunch meat
- (Other meat you have handy)
- Melt Cheez Whiz or velveeta and pour over meat mixture in the kong
- OR you can mix the meats in with canned dog food and skip the melted cheese
It’s nothing terribly innovative or ground breaking, but maybe my list of Kong recipes have given you an idea or inspiration to try something new in your Kong. I know my Kong experimentation with the cheeseburger turned out to be an awesome experience!
Dude, that IS ground-breaking! How did you come up with so many great ideas?
It sounds like the sky’s the limit when it comes to Kong-stuffing. You have elevated the trade into an art form.
One I just discovered this week via happy accident? Scrambled eggs (with or without cheese). Made some for husband & myself, he didn’t want his portion. I know both dogs like ’em, so into the Kongs they went. Big hit.
My husband likes using slices of white bread (usually remnants of a loaf) and peanut butter. As you mentioned, this combo is very sticky and hard for the dogs to remove!
Haven’t tried banana yet or pumpkin. Been meaning to try cheese + kibble and warm up in the microwave.
We give Shiva a stuffed Kong every single time we leave her alone. Every single time since the very first day we brought her home. That is a lot of Kongs. But she now seems to love it when we give signals we are about to leave the house. She gets all excited and runs to her crate in anticipation of the Kongy goodness. A very far cry from her separation anxiety days.
However, as you can imagine, she is now a professional de-stuffer. Her Kongs are always frozen with whatever goodies I can dig up and yet somehow she gets them emptied out within half an hour. I even bend small rawhide sticks in half and squish them in amongst the peanut buttery goodness under the lip of the bottom and she can somehow work those out very quickly.
I’ve tried pretty much everything on your list but I have not tried white bread (or a Wendy’s cheeseburger! ;-)). Maybe that will be the game-changer!
This is great! So many good ideas…
I normally give my Shiba a Kong filled with mashed and frozen sardines (or other canned fish). Smells terrible, but he loves it and it takes him a good while to work on it. Sometimes I stick a couple treats in there, or mix in a small blob of peanut butter or cottage cheese.
I never give him just PB though, that doesn’t sit well with him.
I have gotten lazy with my Kong stuffings of late … so this is good inspiration!
I am a kitchen sink-er. Lol I just throw random stuff in there.