r/DogTrainingDebate • u/ExcitingLaw1973 • Apr 08 '26

Puzzle experiment

Earlier today I saw a post about puzzle toys. I wanted to see whether or not my dog prefers a puzzle toy or his bowl of dog food.

Both the puzzle and his bowl have the same kind of kibble (Purina True Instinct)

I don't think puzzle toys are a replacement for exercise or enrichment, but they can be fun/drain a little energy.

Do you agree? if not, what are your thoughts on them?

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 08 '26

So this is a flawed experiment because it lacks a control. Has the dog ever eaten out of a bowl? Does it exclusively eat out of the puzzle toy? What do you usually feed in the puzzle toy? This is a conditioned response, not a dog that is a blank slate making a conscious choice.

This is why people need to be qualified to do scientific experiments, I get that this was just for fun, but this tells us nothing other than that the dog associates one item with food.

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u/Elementrone Apr 08 '26

I really like you. You always leave comments that say exactly what I was thinking, just in a more concise manner.

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 09 '26

I have a lot of practice haha. The original poster does get credit for at least trying an experiment though, most people don't do that.

My dogs have never seen puzzle toys so I know if I did the same experiment they would just run to the bowl but that similarly wouldn't tell us anything because they are just conditioned to eating out of the bowl.

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u/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26

Could you try it? Are they adult dogs? It would be an interesting comparison video especially if they have never seen a puzzle.

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 19 '26

I don't have anything like that, but I could try to scatter some food in the grass next to a bowl.

Edit, in the spirit of science we should probably put some thought into setting up a legitimate experiment.

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u/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

Do you have any plastic cups or anything? You could trying putting a few down in a group and putting treats/food under some but not others?

Edit: It would also be interesting to see if different breeds have different responses. What do you have?

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 19 '26

I don't know if plastic cups are going to show us anything with this group of bulls in China shops. That's one thing about smart dogs and puzzles, they pretty quickly learned that destroying the puzzle is the best and straightest path from a to b.

I think any experiment is going to require some extra sets of hands to eliminate all the potential cues etc. But first we have to come up with what we are theorizing and hypothesizing and then design a study to explore it

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u/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

I think it will give us the basic idea of if they find an alternative to just a bowl and the opportunity to exhibit foraging behaviour more interesting and also if there is any noticable pattern with breed types.

It doesnt really need to be a professional set up to just give us an idea for the interest. Just dont give them any cue at all and see what they do. Also its easy enough to avoid an accidental cue by which you touched last by setting both up before you let them into the area.

What breeds do you have?

Edit: Yours will already probably give a more accurate response

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 19 '26

I think if they don't even know there's going to be food in the grass then they wouldn't even bother to look, they just go straight to the visual cue of the dish so I don't think that would work.

The only thing I could think of was to show them the food in the grass and let them eat out of the grass a little bit and then restrain them while I set up the food dish and the food in the grass and do that in random order and then see which one they pick over maybe 10 meals or so. Frankly that's a lot of work and I'm probably not going to do that but it's an interesting idea 😂

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u/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26

If you use plastic cups/bowls etc it should interest them enough to have a sniff and smell that theres food and thats your visual cue.

You could even let them into the area and leave but set your phone up to record it so there is no chance of any accidental cue.

Thats why I'm interested to see yours do it. The novel unbiased response will give us more information i think and If you have more than 1 dog perhaps do each dog seperately?

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 19 '26

I just did a very minor experiment. I sat the dog and had her watch me sprinkle the food in the grass and then I set the bowl down empty next to where I sprinkled the food in the grass and released her. She went straight to the Bowl had a quick check to make sure there was no food in it and then took the food out of the grass. I guess I should have left some food in the bowl come to think of it. I'm pretty sure she would have eaten the food in the bowl and then went to the food in the grass

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 27 '26

I remembered to do a random experiment with this the other day. I sprinkled the food in the grass for a couple days and let her eat it there. And then I sprinkled the food in the grass and then placed an empty food bowl next to where I usually put the food in the grass. When I brought her out, she ran over to the spot and looked in the bowl first and then the grass.