Like many dog owners, when I leave the house I leave my little dog with a filled kong toy to entertain him for a while. In fact, we have this game where I tie it in a bandana and hide it before I leave so he has to go search for it.
I have two kongs. I lost the first one temporarily so had to buy another. Then, of course, the first kong showed up. No need to keep two in play, so I stored one on top of the refrigerator.
A few days ago I reached for that extra kong, planning to fill it and freeze it. Huh, that’s weird, it’s stuck to the top of the frig. WHAT?!?! STUCK??? Yep. Apparently the heat that refrigerators put out sort of melted the kong toy into it. Didn’t know that could happen.
I decided to just let it sit on the counter for a few days and see if it would firm back up. It never did. It left these marks on paper four days after I took it down from the frig. And you can see that the bottom of the kong looks like raw meat.
Fine. Throw it away. No problem. But do I need to worry about the one I use regularly? Might it be slowly releasing rubber into what I stuff into it, and therefore into my dog?
Dog owners and kong users out there – should I be worried?
Absolutely no idea, Peg. 🙁
But probably it is dangerous when exposed to that high temperature, and maybe it is OK at room temp.
I hope someone who knows better will share a few thoughts!