09/26/2026
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A Kong doesn’t need to be stuffed full of peanut butter to keep your puppy occupied... and actually, I’d rather it wasn’t. There are loads of things we can use, including part of the food they were going to eat that day anyway. I use food toys as enrichment, but also because they can be really useful within an everyday puppy routine. And you can make them ridiculously easy at first, or much more challenging once the puppy understands how they work.
Your puppy’s normal food is probably the most obvious place to start. Dry puppy food can go in as it is, or you can soak it first so it becomes softer and easier to pack into the toy, and wet puppy food works brilliantly too. Then there are things like plain cooked chicken, turkey or boneless white fish that can be mixed through rather than necessarily filling the whole thing. I actually like doing that because you can have mostly normal puppy food with little bits of something more interesting mixed in, rather than turning every Kong into a huge pile of extras. Remember as well that a growing puppy needs a nutritionally complete diet, so I don’t want enrichment foods gradually replacing a significant amount of their proper puppy food just because we’ve discovered they fit nicely into a rubber toy.
Then we’ve got the softer fillings. Plain Greek yoghurt and plain cottage cheese can be used in small amounts for puppies who tolerate dairy, and pumpkin purée or mashed sweet potato can give you another texture to work with. With peanut butter, I personally think the easiest option is simply to buy a dog-friendly peanut butter that has actually been made for dogs. You can buy these from pet shops and dog companies, and there are also all sorts of dog-friendly meat pastes and treat pastes now that come in tubes or pouches. They’re really useful because you only need a smear, particularly if you're using one to seal the end of something or spread over another filling. If you ever do use human peanut butter instead, you MUST check the ingredients carefully because xylitol (also sometimes called birch sugar) is toxic to dogs. Peanut butter is also very calorie dense, so we're talking about using it sensibly, not filling the entire Kong with it.
Fruit and vegetables can give you different tastes and textures as well. Banana is an easy one to mash, blueberries can be pushed between other ingredients, and small pieces of strawberry, cucumber, carrot, courgette or green beans can all be used. Apple is fine without the core and seeds, and watermelon needs to be seedless with the rind removed. I’d introduce anything unfamiliar gradually rather than putting five foods your puppy has never eaten before into the same Kong and then wondering which one upset their stomach. And obviously everything on this graphic is an option, not a shopping list for one Kong!
Freezing them is where you can start changing how long the activity lasts. I wouldn’t give a puppy their very first Kong frozen solid and incredibly difficult, because if they can’t work out how to get anything from it, some will simply give up. Let them learn the game first. Once they understand it, you can pack soaked puppy food or wet food into it, perhaps mix in a few little pieces of chicken or blueberries, seal the opening with a small amount of something soft and then freeze it. You can also partly freeze one rather than making it rock solid. How difficult I make it depends on the puppy in front of me, because enrichment is supposed to be something they can actually engage with, not an endurance test.
And none of this has to involve a Kong specifically. The same general idea works with other appropriately sized fillable rubber toys, lick mats, slow-feeder bowls and some of the enrichment bowls and feeders you can buy now. A lick mat might have a thin layer of wet puppy food, pumpkin or a little dog-friendly paste spread across it, and you can freeze those too. Slow feeders can turn part of an ordinary meal into something that takes a little longer, without adding a single extra calorie. I quite often prefer using the puppy’s actual meal for enrichment for exactly that reason. You’re changing HOW they get some of their food rather than continually adding more food on top.
There are a couple of practical things I’d keep in mind, particularly with young puppies. Choose an enrichment toy that’s the correct size and appropriate for your puppy’s chewing style, check it regularly for damage, and supervise them until you know how they use it. I’d use plain, unseasoned foods rather than leftovers that may contain salt, sauces, onion, garlic or other ingredients we don’t want. New foods need introducing sensibly as well, particularly with puppies who have sensitive stomachs or are already on a specific diet. And if your puppy has a medical condition, food allergy or is on a veterinary diet, I’d check with your vet before starting to add different foods.
I also wouldn’t feel that every Kong has to be some elaborate frozen creation with seven different layers in it. Sometimes I literally want something quick that I can prepare in a couple of minutes, and using their own food is absolutely fine. Other times I might prepare a few in one go, freeze them and have them ready when I need them, which is particularly handy when you know there are predictable points in the day when your puppy needs a quieter activity. You can experiment with texture and difficulty as they get better at it... just keep an eye on what’s actually going into the puppy across the whole day rather than treating enrichment food as though it somehow doesn’t count because it came out of a Kong. 💛
