I have a lab mix who destroys toys the way other dogs destroy tennis balls, and I have a beagle who treats toys with the quiet contempt of a cat. I ran the West Paw Toppl against a Kong Classic for eight weeks with both dogs, and the short answer is that the Toppl is the better tool for most dogs most of the time — but not for the reason the marketing says.
What the Toppl actually is
It is a rubber bowl with a wide open mouth on one side and a smaller hole on the other, with rubber prongs lining the inside. You stuff it with wet food, yogurt, soaked kibble, or a squeeze tube treat, and you freeze it. The dog licks and chews the frozen stuffing out over twenty to thirty minutes. That is the whole product.
It comes in two sizes — small/medium and large — and two of the same size interlock so you can make a rolling puzzle out of them. The large is the right size for any dog over thirty pounds. The small is for small dogs and for stacking.
The fill-and-freeze toy I tested for eight weeks
The West Paw Toppl holds more than a Kong, freezes faster, and is easier to clean because the wide mouth means you can get a sponge inside. For most dogs it is the better fill-and-freeze choice.
See the West Paw Toppl on Amazon →Why the Toppl beats a Kong for most dogs
The Kong Classic is the default, and it is fine. But the Kong has a narrow opening and a closed bottom, which means three things that add up over time.
First, the Kong is hard to clean. Wet food pushed to the bottom of a Kong stays there, and getting it out means a bottle brush and effort. A dirty Kong is a smelly Kong, and a smelly Kong is a Kong you stop using. The Toppl has a wide open mouth — you can see everything, reach everything, and wash it with a normal sponge. I have used both for eight weeks and the Toppl is genuinely easier to keep clean, which is the real reason it gets used more.
Second, the Kong holds less. The narrow opening means you can only get so much food in, and a large dog finishes a frozen Kong in ten minutes. The Toppl large holds about twice as much and lasts my lab mix twenty-five to thirty minutes frozen solid.
Third, the Kong is harder to fill. You have to stand it on its base and spoon food in through the narrow top. The Toppl sits flat on the counter and you can fill it with a spatula in seconds. This sounds trivial, but the toy that is easier to prep is the toy you actually use every day.
What holds up to a power chewer
The lab mix chewed on the Toppl every day for eight weeks. The rubber is softer than Kong rubber, which worried me at first, but the shape is the saving grace. The Toppl is a bowl, not a solid chunk, and a dog cannot get his jaw around it the way he can around a Kong. She chews the rim, she licks the inside, and she cannot get leverage to rip it apart. After eight weeks the rim has tooth marks and the prongs inside are slightly worn, but nothing is torn.
The Kong Classic, in the same eight weeks, has visible gouges on the outside from her chewing on it after the food was gone. The Kong survived too, but the Toppl actually looks better, because the shape discourages the worst chewing.
For a true power chewer — the kind of dog who destroys black Kongs — neither toy is the right answer unsupervised. West Paw makes the Toppl in their Zogoflex material, which is tough, but no rubber toy is power-chewer-proof forever. The honest move is to take the Toppl away when the food is gone, not to let the dog chew on it for an hour.
How long a frozen Toppl lasts
This depends on what you put in it and how frozen it is. My numbers, eight weeks of daily use:
- Wet food only, frozen four hours: 15-20 minutes for the lab mix, 25-30 for the beagle.
- Wet food mixed with kibble and soaked, frozen overnight: 25-30 minutes for the lab mix, 40+ for the beagle.
- Just yogurt, frozen solid: 10-15 minutes. Yogurt freezes hard and cracks out in chunks, which is fast.
- Wet food layered with a squeeze tube treat in the prongs, frozen overnight: 35-40 minutes for the lab mix. This is the maximum loadout.
The beagle, who is a gentle chewer, gets the longest times because he licks instead of biting. The lab mix chews the frozen food out, which is faster.
Who the Toppl is not for
It is not for a dog who needs a puzzle, only for a dog who needs duration. The Toppl does not teach anything — there is no mechanism to figure out, just a hole with food in it. If your dog needs mental work and not just time-killing, a Nina Ottosson puzzle is the right tool. The Toppl is for the dog who finishes meals too fast and needs the meal stretched, or for the dog who is home alone and needs something to do.
It is also not for a dog who cannot have wet food. Some dogs are on dry-only diets for medical reasons, and a dry-only Toppl is just a bowl with prongs in it. You can soak kibble in water or broth to make it stick, but it is not the same.
If your dog needs to think, not just chew
The Toppl kills time. A puzzle like the Nina Ottosson Dog Brick teaches the dog to work for food. If your dog finishes the Toppl in five minutes and is still bouncing off the walls, he needs a puzzle, not a fill toy.
See the Nina Ottosson Dog Brick on Amazon →How to use it well
Freeze it the night before, not the morning of. Four hours in the freezer is not enough for a dog who finishes it in ten minutes — you want it frozen solid, which means overnight. The wide mouth means it freezes evenly, which is one of the few things the Kong does worse.
Layer it. Put a squeeze tube treat in the prongs first (it sticks), then wet food around it, then a different texture on top. Layers force the dog to work through each one instead of biting the whole thing out in chunks.
Take it away when empty. The Toppl is a food toy, not a chew toy. Letting a dog chew on it for an hour after the food is gone is how rims get destroyed. Food done, toy goes in the sink.
Dishwasher safe, top rack. I run mine through twice a week and it comes out clean. The Kong is also dishwasher safe but the narrow opening means it sometimes comes out with food still in the bottom.
The honest answer after eight weeks
The West Paw Toppl is the fill-and-freeze toy I reach for first now, and the Kong Classic is the backup. The Toppl holds more, cleans easier, fills faster, and lasts longer because the shape discourages the worst chewing. For the lab mix it survives daily use. For the beagle it will outlast me. For a dog who needs a puzzle rather than a time-killer it is the wrong tool, but it never claimed to be a puzzle. It claims to be a fill-and-freeze toy, and it is the best one I have used.
