I have three dogs. A border collie who treats every puzzle like a math exam, a lab mix who treats every puzzle like a buffet, and a senior beagle who treats every puzzle like an insult. I ran all three of them through the Nina Ottosson Dog Brick over six weeks, and what I learned is that the Dog Brick is not a single product — it is a different product depending on which dog is in front of it.
What the Dog Brick actually is
It is a flat plastic board, roughly the size of a paperback book, divided into compartments. Some compartments have flip-up lids, some have sliding panels, and a few have removable brick-shaped bones that lift out to reveal kibble underneath. You hide food in the compartments, and the dog has to figure out which motion opens which one.
Nina Ottosson rates it Level 2, "Intermediate." That rating is doing a lot of work. The Dog Brick is the puzzle that separates dogs who can think sequentially from dogs who can only think one step at a time.
The intermediate puzzle I tested on three dogs
The Nina Ottosson Dog Brick (Level 2) combines flip lids, slide panels, and removable bones in one board. It is the right step up from a beginner puzzle for any dog who has figured out the easy ones.
See the Nina Ottosson Dog Brick on Amazon →How three different dogs handled it
The border collie solved the flip lids in about ninety seconds. The slide panels took another minute. The removable bones — where you have to lift a bone out, set it aside, and then access the kibble — took him three meals to work out, because lifting and setting aside is a two-step motion and most puzzles never ask for that. After a week, he was running the full board in under two minutes. After two weeks, he was bored, and I had to start rotating it with harder puzzles.
The lab mix never solved the removable bones. She solved the flip lids (slam them with her nose), solved the slide panels (swipe with a paw), and then hit the bones and spent four minutes chewing on the board itself. The Dog Brick is tough plastic — she did not destroy it — but she did not figure out the lift-and-set-aside motion in six weeks. For her, the Dog Brick is a permanent puzzle, not a stepping stone.
The senior beagle sniffed the kibble out from under the flip lids in about two minutes and ignored the slide panels and bones entirely. Beagles do not solve puzzles; beagles solve smells. For him the board was a sniff game, which is fine, but he was never going to engage with the mechanical parts.
What the Dog Brick teaches
The removable bones are the whole product. Every other Nina Ottosson puzzle asks the dog to do one motion — flip, slide, spin. The Dog Brick is the first one that asks the dog to do a motion and then do a second motion to get the reward. That is sequential thinking, and it is the skill that lets a dog eventually handle the Level 3 puzzles (Twister, Worker) without giving up.
If your dog has only ever used a beginner board like the Dog Smart, the Dog Brick is the correct next step. If your dog has never used a puzzle at all, the Dog Brick will frustrate him — start one level down.
What holds up and what does not
The plastic is tough. The lab mix chewed on the board and on the bone pieces for weeks and left only tooth marks, not gouges. I would not give it to a true power chewer unsupervised, but for normal dogs it survives.
The flip lids are the weak point. They are hinged with a thin plastic tongue, and after six weeks of the lab mix slamming them with her nose, two of the hinges are visibly loose. They still work, but they will be the first thing to break. This is a known issue with the Dog Brick across reviews — the lids fail before the rest of the board.
The slide panels are tight, which is good (a loose slide panel is a puzzle a dog solves in one swipe) but means the board can bind if it gets dirty. Wash it, do not just brush it out.
Who it is for, honestly
It is for a dog who has graduated from a beginner puzzle and needs the next step. The collie got two good weeks out of it and moved on. The lab mix will get years out of it because she never solves the bones. The beagle got nothing out of it because it is not built for scent dogs.
If your dog is a beginner, start with the Nina Ottosson Dog Smart (Level 1) or a snuffle mat instead. The Dog Brick assumes a dog who already understands "flip the thing to get the food."
If your dog is a power chewer, the Dog Brick survives normal use but not unsupervised chewing. For a chewer who also needs mental work, the West Paw Toppl stuffed and frozen is the better tool — it is built for mouths and lasts longer.
For the dog who chews instead of solving
If your dog treats puzzles like a chew toy instead of a problem, the West Paw Toppl stuffed with wet food and frozen gives the same mental work through a chewable, power-chewer-rated rubber.
See the West Paw Toppl on Amazon →How to use it
Start with only the flip lids loaded, everything else empty. Let the dog learn one mechanism at a time. Once he is flipping confidently, add the slide panels. Once he is sliding, add the bones. Do not load the whole board on day one — a dog overwhelmed by a full board learns to just slam the whole thing, which is the lab mix's problem and the reason she never solved the bones.
Cap sessions at ten minutes. A dog who works a puzzle longer than ten minutes is either frustrated or obsessing, and neither is the point. Pick it up, put it away, try again tomorrow.
Wash it with hot soapy water between sessions. Saliva and kibble grease build up in the slides and the hinges, and a dirty board binds.
The honest answer after six weeks
The Nina Ottosson Dog Brick is the best intermediate puzzle on the market because it is the only one that teaches sequential thinking. For a dog who is ready for that, it is the right purchase. For a dog who is not ready, it is a frustrating piece of plastic that will sit in a closet. Know which dog you have before you buy it. My collie was ready. My lab mix was not, and she still gets use out of it by ignoring the hard parts. The beagle should never have been given it. Match the puzzle to the dog, not the other way around.
