Best chew toy for Rhodesian Ridgeback

The right chew toy for a serious chewer has to sit in a sweet spot — tough enough to survive a powerful jaw session but not so hard it risks cracking teeth, which is a real concern people often overlook. The best choice depends a lot on how your dog actually chews and how much force they're working with. To point you in the right direction: what breed and size is your dog, would you call them a moderate or full-on aggressive chewer, and what's driving the search — boredom, destructive behaviour, anxiety, or just getting through toys too fast?

A 40kg Ridgeback with a track record of destroying toys — that's a good stress test for any product. Before I give you a recommendation, one quick question: has he gone through standard rubber Kongs before, or has he mainly been getting through cheaper toys? That'll help me tell you whether you need the standard Extreme or if you should be looking at something even more reinforced.

That tells me a lot — a regular Kong won't cut it for him, but the one he had almost certainly wasn't the Extreme variant, which is a meaningfully different product. My recommendation is the Kong Extreme in XL. It's made from a much denser, black natural rubber compound specifically designed for powerful adult chewers, and it's noticeably harder to deform than the classic red Kong. At around £15–18 for the XL on Amazon UK, it's genuinely the best value in this category — it outperforms toys costing two or three times as much for dogs like yours. Fill it with peanut butter or kibble and freeze it, and it becomes an extended chewing session rather than something he demolishes in ten minutes. It won't last forever if he's left unsupervised with it for hours every day, but with sensible use it should give you months rather than weeks. That's the honest benchmark for a dog his size and strength.

A couple of things worth knowing: size matters more than people think, so make sure you're buying XL — a Large will be too small for a Ridgeback and he'll have more leverage on it. Supervision is important early on; the first few sessions should be watched so you can see how he's engaging with it. If he's a gulper as well as a chewer, make sure no chunks are coming off. If he does eventually work through the Extreme — which would take most dogs a very long time — the next step up is the West Paw Zogoflex Tux or Toppl in large. They're indestructible-tier, made in the USA from a completely different material, come with a replace-if-destroyed guarantee, and are around £20–25. But start with the Kong Extreme XL. It handles the vast majority of powerful chewers at a price that makes sense.