preference Archives - eileenanddogs

Dog Food Toys, Rates of Reinforcement, and the Matching Law

Posted on March 28, 2023May 20, 2023 by Eileen Anderson

Three dog stuffable food toys: a blue Westpaw Toppl, a red Kong, and a Greenish-yellow Westpaw Tux

Can you tell which one of the food toys in the photo above likely offers the highest rate of reinforcement when full? Your dog knows!

Lewis taught me this lesson. He is happy to lick and munch on a Kong (center) stuffed with frozen food when there’s nothing else going on. But if he’s excited in the car, he will ignore a Kong full of the same food. It’s not high enough value in that situation, but the same food in a “Toppl” toy (left) is.

Are You SURE Your Dog Prefers That Food Toy?

Posted on June 7, 2017February 4, 2023 by Eileen Anderson

It just occurred to me that it is super easy to make assumptions about how much our dogs prefer a particular food toy, or even whether they really enjoy them that much.

Don’t yell at me. To be clear: I use food toys for my dogs every single day. I think they can be enriching and that they are ethical things to use.

But food toys present us with a funny little problem. The laws of behavior get in the way of something we might like to know. How can we tell which toys our dogs like best? Or whether they like them at all?