Kruuse Task for Buster Activity Mat, Springroll

$ 10.56

This is a well-designed kit with great build quality and innovative challenges for your dog. It may seem expensive, but the quality is quite worth the money! It also has a good philosophy as spelled out in the manual: each dog has his/her own way of solving these puzzles, and there is no wrong way!The kit provides a challenge different from plastic toys. Is your dog used to plastic toys from Nina Ottosson and Trixie? Try the Kruuse Buster. This kit can entertain our more intelligent dogs that have figured out the plastic puzzles. They have to do things in a different way to get treats from these fabric puzzles. Securing individual “tasks” to a heavy mat is a nice innovation, because by keeping them in place, that makes it possible for dogs to solve more complicated fabric puzzles. So we have to give credit to the designer Marianne Hailer Vesterholt for inventing this toy!The kit comes with three tasks. There are nine other tasks that you have to purchase separately. The tasks are classified according to their level of difficult. There are three levels. Make sure to introduce to your dog the lower level tasks first. You can also make the higher level tasks easier.All items are made of thick, durable materials. The mat is thick and substantial. It is rubberized on the back for a better grip on the floor. Two metal rods have been sewn in at the edges to keep the mat flat. There are three thick velcro straps to keep the mat from unrolling when you store it as a roll. The nylon fabric used for the tasks are heavy and thick. Needless to say, all the stitching is carefully done. Not a loose thread anywhere!The kit comes with a storage bag, which is also very well designed, too. It has an inner pocket to keep the smaller pieces that can get lost. The zippers have a velcro flap. The only use for the flap I can think of is preventing a dog from opening the bag when you don’t want her to. The bag has stiffened edges to help it stand up. The fabric for the bag is thin, but that’s OK because it is meant for storage only, not heavy use.There is only one caveat. The puzzle seems to be designed for a small to medium dog. The pockets in some “tasks” may be too small for big dogs to stick their snout in. Perhaps big dogs can learn to use their paws?Minor observations. (1) The instruction manual comes in multiple languages. I’ve checked a few languages, and I see they hired good translators. The writing is rather on the formal side for a dog toy. (2) The snap fasteners that secure individual tasks to the mat are probably not strong enough for some dogs. This is not really a problem since you should always supervise your dog with playing with this toy. [...]