Pepper is six years old, forty two pounds, and a cattle dog mix, which means she works out a puzzle faster than I can set one up. I look after other people's dogs in my home in Tehachapi, California, usually two or three at a time, and I have been doing it for nine years. When a friend asks what to put in front of a dog who gets bored in four minutes, I point at two things I have actually owned: a West Paw Zogoflex Toppl and a KONG Classic. I still have the Toppl. The last Classic left this house a year ago, the same month the Toppl arrived. That is the short version. The longer version is more useful, because the Classic did a job the Toppl does not do, and I still keep a KONG on the shelf for exactly that reason.
Here is the answer up front. If the job is turning a meal or a snack into twenty minutes of quiet, and you want to be able to rinse the thing off or put it in the dishwasher, buy the Toppl. If the job is something a dog can settle down and gnaw, buy a KONG, and if your dog chews the way Pepper chews, buy the Extreme rather than the Classic. Pepper tore through a Classic four years ago, in one sitting, and has had three Extremes since. The Toppl is not a chew toy in this house. It is a feeder built out of a material tough enough to survive a dog who is trying, and those are two different purchases even though they look similar on a shelf.
| West Paw Toppl | KONG Classic | |
|---|---|---|
| Filling it | Wide mouth, spoon in the yogurt, tap in kibble, level it off with the back of the spoon | Narrow opening, I pushed peanut butter in with a butter knife and hoped the kibble did not jam |
| Cleaning it | Top rack of the dishwasher, no brush needed | Bottle brush at the sink, same as I do the Extremes |
| Freezing a full meal | Made to be frozen, I keep one in the freezer all the time | Freezes fine, the slow part is packing the filling in first |
| Settling in to gnaw | A feeder first, and the small is snug for my forty two pound dog | A chew object first, which is why Pepper ends up with the Extreme |
| Fit for a big dog | The small suits small and medium guest dogs, bigger dogs want the larger size | I kept Classics for guest dogs for three years without thinking about size |
| Food drive required | Nothing happens if your dog will not work for food | Still something to chew when the bowl is empty |
| Left alone with it | Supervised only in my house | Supervised only in my house |
Where the West Paw Toppl Wins
Filling it is the difference I notice every single night. The Toppl has a wide mouth, so I stand at the counter with two of them, spoon plain yogurt in, tap kibble in until it is level with the rim, and they go in the freezer. That is maybe four minutes for both and I do not have to think about it. For three years before that I kept KONG Classics for guest dogs, and filling one meant pushing xylitol free peanut butter down a narrow opening with a butter knife and hoping the kibble did not jam halfway. I tried a squeeze bottle for a while. I tried packing them the night before so I would not be doing it in a hurry. Neither fixed the shape of the hole. The Toppl solved a problem I had stopped noticing I had, and the difference shows up at ten to five in the afternoon, when I am tired and the dogs are already circling the kitchen and I want the job done in one motion.
Cleaning is the second thing, and it is the thing that decides whether a food toy survives in my kitchen. The Toppl goes on the top rack of the dishwasher, which the listing says is fine, and I have been doing that for a year with no change in how it looks. My Classics and my Extremes get scrubbed at the sink with a bottle brush that lives next to the dish soap because of them. The brush is not the end of the world, but it is one more step at nine at night when the dishes are done and I want to sit down with a book. When you are filling a toy twice a day, the cleaning step is what keeps it in rotation. I have a shelf in the hall closet of things I stopped using because they were fussy, and this one has never landed there.
I bought the first Toppl on a hot afternoon last summer with a guest dog in the house who would not settle. She had been walked, she had been out in the yard, and she was still pacing the tile kitchen floor at two in the afternoon, which is the hour I usually want quiet. I filled it with kibble and plain yogurt, put it in the freezer for a couple of hours, and set it down on the covered back porch. She worked at it for a good while and then slept. I ordered a second one that week so there would always be one cold. That is the whole origin story, and it is why I am not neutral about this toy, but it is also why I can tell you what it does and does not fix.
The routine that made it stick is the frozen one. Pepper gets a Toppl in the afternoon on the covered back porch and it lasts her about twenty five minutes, which is the longest stretch of quiet I get out of any food toy I own. A guest beagle who normally inhales her dinner takes about the same. It also does the plain thing the listing promises, which is slowing a fast eater down, and I have watched that happen with a dog who finishes a bowl in under a minute. Once the food is out, the toy is finished as far as I am concerned, and it comes back inside with me. One toy per dog, in separate spots, with me nearby. That rule does not change for anything on my shelf, and it is the reason I still have all of them.
Where the KONG Classic Wins
The KONG wins the chewing job and it is not close. A Toppl is a feeder. A dog works the food out of it and then it is done, and a dog who likes to keep working after the food is gone will start working on the toy itself. Pepper is that dog, so the small Toppl only comes out with me sitting right there, and even then I take it back when the food is gone. Her actual chewing happens on a KONG Extreme at seven in the evening, and the original one is four years old, covered in tooth marks, with no missing chunks. That is a toy doing the job I bought it for. If your dog's main pleasure in life is taking things apart, a food toy is not the answer to that, and no amount of freezing changes it.
The other thing a KONG does that a Toppl cannot: it works on a dog who does not care about food. I have had guest dogs who walk away from a stuffed toy and look at me like I have wasted their afternoon. For those dogs a Toppl is a bowl with extra steps. A KONG is still something to chew, and a dog who will not work for kibble will often still gnaw. That is not a small difference if you are buying one toy and hoping it lands with the dog actually in front of you, rather than the dog you read about on a forum.
Size also matters here in a way the listing understates. The Toppl I own is the small, and the small is snug for a forty two pound cattle dog. She can get her mouth to it, but it is not a roomy thing for her, which is exactly why I sit with her while she has it. If you have a big dog, look at the larger size before you order and do not assume the small will do because it is cheaper to try. My Classics went to guest dogs of a few different sizes over three years and I never had to think about it, which is a real convenience I gave up when the last one left the house.
The Toy I Restock Without Thinking About It
Two of them, one always in the freezer, one always on the porch. That rotation is the whole reason my afternoons are quiet.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →One frozen Toppl buys me twenty five minutes on the porch. A KONG buys me a dog who settles down to chew. Those are two different purchases, and I make both.
What the Listing Says and What It Means at My House
The West Paw listing calls the material Zogoflex and says it is BPA free and non toxic, which matters to me because the thing spends more time in a dog's mouth than in my cupboard. It is listed as water resistant and unscented, and it measures 7.09 by 5.51 by 3.15 inches at 4.23 ounces, light enough that a dog can carry it off the porch and drop it at your feet, which mine does most afternoons. The listing also says all breed sizes, and I would read that with some judgement, because the small is closer to a snack size for a dog Pepper's size. It is made in the United States, which I like, though it is not why I bought it. The dishwasher line on the listing is the one I have actually tested, and a year in I have no complaints about it.
What no listing will tell you is when to take it away. In my house that is when the food is gone, not when the dog gets bored and wanders off. A guest puppy left one small chew mark on a corner of one of my lick mats, and that was the week I stopped leaving any food toy down after it was empty. The Toppl has held up better than that mat did, partly because it is thicker at the edges, but the rule came from watching a puppy decide a finished toy was a chew toy. Supervise it, pick it up, run it through the dishwasher when you get around to it, and it will last.
Who Should Buy Which
Buy the Toppl if your dog works for food and you want a quieter afternoon. Especially if your dog eats fast, if you are home in the afternoon and want a job for them, or if you have a small or medium dog and want something you can fill in three minutes and clean in the dishwasher afterwards. It is also the better first food toy for someone who has never frozen a meal before, because the wide mouth forgives a sloppy fill job and the freezer does the rest of the work for you. If you are on the fence about whether your dog will bother, watch them with a bowl at dinner first. A dog who inhales and then checks the floor is a dog who will work a Toppl.
Buy a KONG if your dog's main interest is chewing, if your dog ignores food toys entirely, or if you have a big dog and want one reliable thing. For a hard chewer I would go Extreme rather than Classic, and that is not a knock on the Classic, it is just Pepper and her four years of evidence. If you have one of each kind of dog, which is most houses with more than one dog in them, you will end up with both, which is where I landed after trying to pick just one for a year. The Toppl is the afternoon. The KONG is the evening.
Start With the Small, Move Up If Your Dog Is Bigger Than Mine
One year in, two of them, one always frozen. That is the whole system and I have not improved on it.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →If I had to keep one, I would keep the Toppl, because twenty five quiet minutes on the porch are worth more to me than a chew I hand over at seven. I would not pretend the KONG Classic lost. It did a different job, it did it well for three years, and the only reason it left is that the Toppl filled the same slot in a way I liked better. Pepper still gets her KONG at seven. Some things do not need improving.