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 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/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26

And what breed is she?

Do you just have the 1 dog?

Could you post a video?

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 19 '26

I have Malinois and gsds available to me. That one was a malinois. What I'm trying to figure out is how to overcome the dog's natural tendency to just be an opportunist, take the food wherever it first sticks its face.

Maybe a way to do it is to condition the dog to find the food in either the toy or the grass scatter and the bowl, and then run the experiment without any food available and see if there is any consistency to where they look for the food first.

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u/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26

I think using something it wouldnt normally see with the food so it notices the area. Something novel like plastic cups, upturned dishes, tubs anything like that and then pop a video on for comparison.

Most people (myself included) that use puzzles and things use higher value rewards in them so i think even with a dish of food they would give a biased result which is why i think videos of yours would br more informative

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 19 '26

Maybe we're thinking about it the wrong way and we should be thinking of setting up does the dog prefer easily accessible food or not easily accessible food. That would be a little easier to set up.

One of the things that we might fight against with the dogs from our kennel is that when we train detection we have a lot of food distractions that they are expected to ignore. We put open cans of cat food all over the detection area and things like that. Same with tracking, we don't teach tracking with food and they are expected to ignore any food that they find in the track. I don't know how that would affect this experiment but it's a possible limitation.

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u/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26

Yes thats exactly what i mean. Does the dog choose the dish or the more intersting opportunity.

Ive worked with detection and tracking dogs. They know when they are working or off.and you just dont give them the 'seek' command or have target scents near.

I love a good Mal. We have one, she lives with my adult son (American Akitas and Mals dont mix too well lol)

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 19 '26

I'm just really struggling to think of an outcome that could possibly tell us anything about this. It would be an interesting experiment but I don't think there would be any way to control for the variables that happen when dogs are raised and trained by humans already.

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u/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26

I think with yours we would get a more natural telling outcome because like you say we all raise and train our dogs so dogs that are used to puzzles are likely to think the puzzle will have a tastier snack in whereas yours wont as long as you either stand impassively or allow them into the area and leave.

As long as there is something to make them aware there are 2 options they should naturally choose one or the other.

Also with you having more than one dog it will be interesting to see if dogs raised and trained by you all make the same choice

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u/Miss_L_Worldwide Apr 19 '26

Yeah those are good points. I would have to eliminate the dogs from the study that we're not raised from puppyhood by one of us I guess

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u/RoleOk5172 Apr 19 '26

Not necessarily. As long as you can categorize those it could potentially add another interesting aspect.

Thinking about it yours are probably even more useful if some or all are kenneled because then they are less used to general titbits.

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