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Let’s Face it! One of the BEST things about a birthday is the presents! I am a pretty spoiled pup, so I have lots of toys, but there is just something *extra special* about BIRTHDAY TOYS!
I got to open my first birthday present this morning – a Dog Casino! Woot Wooten! Have you seen these things? *They’re Pure Excitement!*
The Dog Casino is a puzzle & treat toy. the Mama fills the little drawers with a snack or kibbles and we have to work to get them out! The bones on top work as a “lock” to hold the drawers shut. You have to figure out how to open the drawers and get to the treats. Sounds simple right?
HECK NO!
After a quick read of the directions, the Mama learned that this is a progressive puzzle – you start out with just the treats in drawers, when your dog figures that out, then you start locking the drawers. If your pup is Albert Eindog, then there are all sorts of great ideas to make the puzzle harder and more time consuming – freezing wet food into the drawers, placing the toy on a stool and tying string to all the drawers and letting your pull pull the strings. Seems like the options could be endless!
the Mama let me watch her fill the Casino with sweet red peppers, then she put it on the floor for me to try!
Check it out (the last two minutes are the best)!
I know that *most pups* would have just pawed at the drawers, but I like to do things with a little bit of flair. I think the dragging the drawers open with my teeth add just a hint of class. Don’t you?! The Mama Decided to try just one bone at the end there, but so far I haven’t figured it out. (The video is editted for brevity, but the crying and begging for help went on for some time. the Daddy, who was sleeping, was not amused.)
So what did we think?
With a retail price of $49.99, this toy is a little pricier than most in our house. The folks at our local Tisol store were pretty awesome, encouraging us to take it home and if Kol didn’t like it, saying we could bring it back for a full refund. That definitely helped.
After watching Koly play with it, I’d say it is probably worth the big price tag. It took him a while to empty this one out on it’s easiest setting and there are lots of tips and tricks to make this puzzle progressively harder. Koly is a live wire, so games that tire out his mind are *always* worth it. The Nina Ottossan puzzles are ranked on a scale of 1 – 3 for difficulty. The Dog Casino is a 3, the hardest level. If you aren’t sure your dog will be motivated to work that hard for the treats maybe try one of the level 1 or 2 toys first. We have a wood DogSpinny, which even Felix will work on. (Note: We got the DogSpinny as a gift from our Secret Bub! We had *no idea* they were so pricey! THANK YOU SECRET PAW!)
Koly is very food motivated, so treat toys are always a real hit at our house. Felix on the other hand couldn’t be bothered to give the toy more than a cursory paw before laying down to watch Koly loose his mind. We’re going to try again when Koly out of the room. If Felix plays with it, it will DEFINITELY be worth the price tag.
We were a little concerned about buying a plastic toy, as Koly loves to chew plastic, but it is a good heavy weight plastic and since they toy is for supervised use only, so I think it will be OK. At one point near the end of the video, Koly did try to chew on the handles, but a quick NO! took care of that. (Poor Felix thought I meant him and put himself in a down. Poor sweet Fe.
We give this toy 4 paws out of 5
(It just might get 5, if Felix decides to love it too!)
I’m going to work hard to figure out how my puzzle to works! And to celebrate, as soon as I beat the puzzle, we’re giving one away! ‘Cause that’s how we roll.
Stick around though, we’re not going to make you wait, we’ve got a great giveaway to celebrate my birthday, more recipes, toy reviews and birthday fun! Keep checking back through the day for new posts!
**Please note that no promotional consideration for this post was recieved from Nina Ottossan or Tisol. All opinions expressed are my own.
Puzzles for Pooches and Other Boredom Busters + A Giveaway - Kol's Notes
Thursday 4th of December 2014
[…] in varying levels of difficulty. Kolchak is very food motivated. A few years ago, we bought him a Dog Casino and oh.my.woof. he loves it. This is one of the most difficult puzzles out there and he rocks it. […]