Kong Genius Leo

Hello! If you have followed our blog, or social media at all, you would know that we are a big fan of using toys that will prolong the time it takes for Diego to eat his breakfast. Over the past few years we have gone through a good number of toys, and tried a range of different types of the toys available. The Kong Genius Leo is similar to a few toys that we have tried in which you put the treats inside of the toy and they have to work them out. However, the difference is in the shape of this toy and this adds more of a challenge for Diego to earn his breakfast. We got sent this toy from Animates in July of last year, but have only just started using it more religiously within the past few months. That is not due to the toy itself being inadequate, more due to me not understanding how to best use this toy.

The Kong Genius Leo is made out of the same rubber that you would be used to seeing from the traditional Kong, however I believe it could potentially even be a tougher version of that. Let me start by saying that this toy starts off very firm, and is hard to manoeuvre to get the food inside. Trust me, after a few uses it does loosen up making it easier to use. The Leo also comes in multiple different colour options, but of course, Diego had to have a nice bright pink to match his personality. It also comes in two sizes, a small and large which makes this toy great for any sized dog.

There are a couple of ways that I use this toy using Diego’s general kibble. The easiest way is to just fill it with his breakfast, and give it to him. He spends his time both trying to squeeze the kibble out, and dropping it off the bed onto the floor where it will hopefully bounce out the treats. This means Diego is getting out a few pieces of kibble out at a time, making this the most time efficient toy that we own. No matter his technique, he struggles to get more out than those few pieces at a time. If you want it to take even longer, I smear a tiny bit of peanut butter just inside of the toy, which prevents the kibble from easily bouncing out. It also acts as a glue for the pieces to get stuck together into a larger piece of kibble, thus making it even harder for Diego to remove. I have come home after a day at work and Diego will still be working on getting the treats out.

Another thing I like to do is stick a longer treat down the top of the toy. This helps to prevent the kibble falling out of the top, but also gives Diego another challenge of trying to work out how to get the more rewarding treat out. I like to put things like bully sticks, ribs, and any other tougher, longer chew.

The main problem I had when first using this toy was that I was used to the Original Kong which could be used for both dry kibble and wet ingredients. I don’t find that this toy works well with wet food inside. It is generally too hard for Diego to get out, and ends up just being smeared inside for me to wash out later in the day. I have seen that other people put their raw food into it, however I just personally didn’t find this very effective with Diego’s sized snout/tongue. The ‘flaps’ on the side and bottom of the toy are too sturdy for Diego to manoeuvre them well enough to push food out of the Genius Leo with his tongue. That is why smaller, drier kibble pieces work better as they fall through the little gaps between.

A thing I definitely need to mention is that Diego has ripped part of the top of the toy. This was done super early on, within the first couple of uses, and has since remained intact where it is joined. This is also with me still sticking harder treats down it, it still is connected. Diego likes to find the weakest link in toys and really chew on these areas. This just happens to be the top of the toy where the rubber is thinner, and it is easy to get a good grip on it for the teeth and pull manoeuvre. None of the remaining part of the toy shows any sign of wear apart from some minor scratch marks.

The material of this toy also picks up every piece of hair that has ever been on your floor. Due to Diego often dropping it, and rolling it over the floor in hopes of getting kibble out, it does pick up an excessive amount of dust and hair. It means that after pretty much every use, you do need to clean it. The great part of this is that it is an easy clean, you just have to put it under a trickle of water and gently rub and it will completely remove all that disgusting stuff it picked up off your floor. I am telling you this because no matter how much I vacuum, the Kong Genius Leo still manages to find hair that I didn’t realise was there.

All in all, I am super happy and surprised with how good the Kong Genius Leo is. It’s one of those toys that I highly doubted at the beginning, but once I got used to how well it could work, I haven’t looked back. This is the toy I use pretty much 99% of the time now, knowing that it takes Diego at least a few hours to get all the kibble out and could keep him entertained for longer depending on whether I use peanut butter or not. I would definitely recommend this to any type of dog owner, from the crazy destroyers like Diego, to more of a gentle dog like Chico. I think it also is a toy that no matter how much they use it, the dog doesn’t get much better at it. They will learn techniques to make it easier, but will never fully master it to last only a few minutes (unless they remove the flaps somehow hehe). I think even at the price point it stands at, it is a toy you should invest in and use with your dog on a semi-frequent rotation. Like all dog toys, I am not saying that this one is 100% dog proof, and if your dog has destroyed Kongs in the past, you may want to only use this toy when you are in their presence to make sure it isn’t also completely destroyed. However, I believe for the general dog that doesn’t completely kill Kongs, this will be an absolute asset.