Dogzilla Versus Kong

There are several different companies making durable rubber chew toys, but I'm pretty sure Kong was the first on the scene in 1976. Today there are quite a few different brands to choose from, but none is quite as similar to Kong as the Dogzilla toys by Petmate.

Photo by Erin Koski

The current Dogzilla toys are blue, and they make a big deal out of this. Earlier Dogzilla products were a very familiar red. I always found them for sale in stores that didn't carry Kong products, and wondered if they were trying to confuse people into buying Dogzillas thinking they were Kongs.

I personally think the Kong toys are better designed. The hole ion the toy is big enough to shove a biscuit through, but small enough to prevent most goodies from simply falling out. The inner chamber is deep, and significantly wider than the opening. In contrast, the Dogzilla toys tend to have very wide openings that are nearly as wide as the toy. The inner chambers tend to be shallow. Our Dogzilla dumbbell also has a super tiny passage that leads into the other end of the toy and is far too small to be unpacked even if I wanted to spend forever stuffing one kibble at a time through it.

The Kong company is clearly a dog-centered business. I genuinely believe that their earliest products in particular were designed by dog lovers for their own beloved dogs. I haven't been as impressed with some of their more recent offerings, but the intent to make awesome things for wonderful dogs is still there. Kong also has outstanding customer service, and complaints about their products are usually met with apologies and coupons. When I send a message or ask the Kong company a question, I expect to get back a personal response from an actual person. If I search around the Kong website long enough, I will probably be able to find a picture of this person's dog.

I don't have the same warm fuzzy feelings about the Petmate company, makers of Dogzilla toys. They don't have nostalgic tales about the company founder and their beloved dog gracing the Petmate website. They don't have a community presence or donate to charities on a regular basis. Petmate toys aren't routinely donated to animal shelters, as far as I am aware. They're just a large corporation trying to make money. If I had a problem with one of their products, I would expect to receive an impersonal and mostly useless response, like the time I contacted Premier about an issue with a product and they offered to sell me another one at the regular price.

But my feelings about the companies that make them aside, how do the toys compare? Well, on Amazon most Dogzilla toys have about a three-star rating, with most of the 1- and 2-star reviews complaining that their dogs had never destroyed a Kong but shredded the Dogzilla toy in minutes. Many customers were surprised because their dogs had never done such a thing before. The average Kong rubber toy has a 4.5-rating, and the 1-star reviews consist almost entirely of people lamenting that their super-power-chewers had destroyed the toys. I have yet to find anyone claiming their dog destroys Kongs but the Dogzilla is holding up admirably.

It is my opinion that Kong toys are superior to Dogzilla toys, both in design and durability. There are plenty of dogs who love their Dogzillas, and the brand has many happy customers, but I think Kongs are a more durable product and a better value.

Product Review: Dogzilla Bone

Petmate's Dogzilla toys are durable rubber chew toys that come in various shapes and sizes. Most can be stuffed with peanut butter or treats. Dogzilla toys are available at Walmart and various other retailers.

"Here Briz, hold this."
Photo by Erin Koski

Let's be honest here, these are direct competitors to the Kong toys, and that's ok. The durable chew market has been around for a long time, and we have everything from Nylabones to Bionic toys to choose from. The Dogzilla toys aren't niche products by small companies driven to create products inspired by their own dogs, though. These are large-scale mass-produced for big box stores, and I often wonder if any of the people involved in the design and production process have ever actually used them with their own dogs. I get that these are supposed to be a low-cost option for people to grab while they're at Walmart, my local OSH sells them too.

Photo by Erin Koski

My beef with the Dogzilla toys is just that they feel like someone came up with an idea that looked good on paper, someone else signed off on it, and they went ahead and produced it. The result is our Dogzilla bone. One end has a wide triangular opening, the other end is completely closed except for an air hole. The two ends are connected by a passage just wide enough to fit very small kibbles through. This toy is impossible to clean, impossible to stuff with normal kibble, and impossible to get anything out of once it has been lost down the tube.

I kind of think the idea was to make a toy that could be stuffed with kibble and then emptied out, but the passage in our large toy is too narrow for most kibbles to fit. I can't make treats tiny enough to fit easily into the tube of the toy, and when I tried stuffing kibble down it I couldn't get it back out until I soaked it into oblivion and just rinsed it. The dogs can't get anything out of it either.

With two-thirds of the toy being unusable, that leaves the big open end for stuffing with peanut butter and other treats. I can fit a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter in there, but the opening is so wide I may as well be spreading it in a bowl. I have tried freezing it, but there's no way to turn this into a long-lasting challenge.

Pros: An affordable chew toy that is widely available. The current ones are blue, dogs are supposed to be able to see the color blue really well. Some of the shapes are better designed than this one.

Cons: Not as durable as Kong, Nylabone, or Bionic toys. Design flaws make me feel like this was designed by a committee who wasn't planning to give this toy to their own dogs. Impossible to clean, and either ridiculously easy or impossible to unstuff depending on where the food is placed.

Bottom Line: I bought this toy on a trip when I realized I needed to entertain Brisbane in a crate for several hours and had forgotten all of our puzzle toys. It sort of served its purpose, but I would have bought a different Dogzilla toy or a Kong if either of these options had been available. The Dogzilla bone has fallen out of our freezer toy rotation because it is just kind of useless.