Review of "Chess" - Trixie

Demo

Here is Audrey (our Border Collie) demoing the toy.

Overall 5/10

"Chess" by Trixie is a smart toy, designed to improve your dogs dexterity and may help improve critical thinking. Although the toy is durable and safe, it's very simple and quite tedious to setup.

Durability 8/10

The toy is made entirely of plastic, and outside of the 4 pylons has no other moving parts. By nature of design, the toy itself is very durable and does not create situations that would allow it to break. The pylons are also quite durable and would take some serious chewing (even for an expert).

Difficulty 2/10

This toy is very simple. It only has two mechanisms

1. Slider. Dog must to push the slider from side to side to reveal hidden food underneath.
2. Pylon block. Before moving sliders, the necessary pylons must be removed.

There is a chance that food will fall between the sliders, which temporarily blocks the pieces from moving.

Safety 8/10

The toy is well constructed and durable, and has a reasonable amount of moving pieces. The few pieces it has (pylons) are quite large and unlikely to cause your dog to choke.

Time Per Play 30-45s

Even for less skilled dogs this game will become trivially quickly. At that point, it becomes quite a burden to continuously setup and play with your dog.

Price $19.99

This is a mid priced smart dog toy and does not deliver the best value. There's definitely cheaper options that will not require as much work for the human.