Puzzle Toy Review: The OurPets IQ Treat Ball

The IQ Treat Ball by OurPets is a rolling puzzle toy. It features an adjustable difficulty level and comes in two sizes for larger and smaller dogs.

Photo by Erin Koski

This is a small but relatively complicated puzzle toy. The ball has two halves that unscrew from each other. The top is clear with a hole in the top and the bottom is opaque. Food is placed into the bottom chamber and must first fall through the adjustable hole in the white middle plate before it falls out the whole in the clear top of the ball.

Some of Brisbane's favorite roller toys are ones that require two steps to get the food out. This is why the Starmark Bob-a-Lot and the Busy Buddy Magic Mushroom are such challenging puzzles.

Photo by Erin Koski

OurPets is the company that currently owns both the Buster Cube and the Atomic Treat Ball, formerly known as the Molecuball.

Puzzle Toy Rating

Capacity: 3/5
The larger ball fits about half a cup of kibble.

Loading Speed: 4/5
Unscrew, fill, screw shut again.

Unloading Speed (standard dog): 4/5
It takes a fair amount of rolling to get the food out.

Unloading Speed (superdog): 4/5
On the most difficult setting it does take Briz quite a while to get his daily ration of kibble out of the IQ Ball. As an added bonus, he can see the food as soon as it falls through the first hole.

Size: 2/5
This ball comes in two sizes, but they both seem to have the same size hole in the top. This hole is just the right size for Ru-sized dogs to get their lower jaws stuck inside. The instructions say the ball is only for dogs too small to fit it in their mouths, but the larger size is only 4" in diameter, so it is also not for very large dogs.

Durability: 4/5
Not indestructible, but tough enough to withstand anything short of a major chewer...provided the dog in question is not big enough to fit their mouth around the ball.

Noise: 1/5
This is a hard plastic ball, it will make horrible noises on hardwood. If I didn't have all hardwood floors I would probably rate it higher in this area. Hell, if I didn't have all hardwood floors I probably wouldn't even be considering noisemaking properties of puzzle toys.

Locatability: 1/5
At 4" in diameter, this toy is basically designed to fit under every piece of furniture I own. Is it hiding under the couch? The china hutch? The desk? The coffee table? The dresser? The possibilities are endless.

Washability: 5/5
Comes apart for easy scrubbing with no annoying bits.

Versatility: 4/5
The ball pictured here actually belongs to Xhuuya the raven, who enjoys flinging it, unscrewing it, and hiding the pieces.

Total: 32/50

The Tale of the Buster Cube

Gather 'round while I tell a tale of mystery and the unexplained...

The Buster Cube, by Our Pets, was the first food-dispensing toy I ever bought for Brisbane. It was nearly ten years ago, maybe longer. It's possible that I bought the first one for Oakley, my first dog. Back then, the Buster Cube was a lot more cube-like, the current model has very rounded edges. Those things are pretty big, and made from hard plastic. It was a loud toy, but back then I still lived with my parents, and their house has wall-to-wall carpet in almost every room. The Buster Cube served its purpose, it held more than a cup of kibble and kept Brisbane entertained as he bashed it into walls. The rotating center column never functioned in either of my Cubes, it always jammed on the first turn and could never be rotated or adjusted. At any rate, it was a neat toy. Our first one was red.

One day I went looking for the Cube in order to fill it up, and couldn't find it anywhere. Brisbane often shoved it under the furniture, and Oakley occasionally rolled it into her lair beneath the bed. After several weeks of searching intermittently, I broke down and replaced with a large Blue Buster Cube. This one also disappeared eventually, but by then I had acquired the TreatStik and a few other puzzle toys, so finding the Cube became less urgent. I always assumed it was under the bed or something, and that I would find it when I eventually moved out and emptied my room.

I have since gotten married, moved out, and emptied my old room. My parents have remodeled and redecorated, they have removed, rearranged, or replaced every single piece of furniture in the house over the last ten years. The Buster Cubes have never been found.

Where did they go? They were too large for Brisbane to pick up and carry, and much too big and obvious to have gotten mixed up in a pile of laundry or anything else we had around the house. They both vanished during the middle of the day when everyone in the house was at school or at work. While it's possible that one of my parents or siblings got fed up with the rattling noise and tossed the Cubes, it's much more likely that they would have complained about it first. None of Brisbane's noisier or more obnoxious toys vanished while I lived there. Just the Cubes.

Briz has much better puzzle toys now, but I haven't replaced the Buster Cube because it just feels too weird. What if it disappears again?