All dog owners have wondered it. The thought crosses their minds while they sit at dinner in a restaurant or simply go to work, leaving Rover at home. “What do dogs do while they’re home alone?”

That question often entered the minds of professional trainer Sandi Thompson and design engineer David Rucker, both of Dogopolis LLC. The question led the pair to begin a two-year initiative of research on the habits of “latchkey” dogs. Based on that extensive research, the team at Dogopolis developed KongTime, an automated entertainment solution for home alone dogs that relieves the boredom and anxiety caused by separation.

KongTime is an automatic Kong toy dispenser, which functions as an entertainment and feeding system for home alone dogs. The unit automatically dispenses up to four food-filled toys, at random times, for up to eight hours.

KongTime is made of durable, strong plastic and all surfaces are rounded to prevent the dog from grabbing hold of any edges. The exit door is one-way to keep curious dogs from entering. It holds up to four small, medium, or large Kong toys. By randomizing the toys, the dog’s interest will always be piqued.

‘Rough’ Manufacturing

With the design in place, Dogopolis needed help manufacturing the unit. To bring its idea to life, Dogopolis partnered with Powell, OH-based New Product Innovations (NPI). NPI helps companies create high quality products and get them to market quickly, handling all development, program management, logistics, supply chain management, and fulfillment functions.

“We knew we really had designed a great pet product, but we needed manufacturing help to bring it to market with speed and quality” Rucker says. “We engaged NPI because of their extensive experience, innovative culture, and the ability to mobilize a wide-array of manufacturing development and management resources.”

NPI provided Dogopolis with a single point of contact and management for the entire KongTime project. NPI began with the initial design and performed a thorough manufacturability review. Once a final design specification was reached, NPI then executed a thorough product plan that included tooling, testing, supply chain management, and production.

How it Works

For the consumer, KongTime is a snap to operate. All the user needs to do is fill the Kong toys with food, load the toys, set the time they will be away, and press the start button. The machine does the rest and actually staggers the dispensing of the food-filled toys to keep dogs’ attention. Behind the scenes, the machine is a simple design utilizing off-the-shelf products, but one that has more complex roots than one might think. “I think engineers can appreciate how elegant this is, but it took us a long time to get to something so simple,” Rucker says. “It had to be ‘dog-proof’ and we had to do a lot of behavioral field research.”

The unit is automated by a PC board and micro-switch. The PC board tells the micro-switch when to turn the unit on. The unit is then simply a motor and rotating polypropylene tray with four hinges. The motor spins the tray at the appropriate time and the unit then relies on gravity to let the toys roll off onto the floor for the dog. But getting to that point presented a great deal of challenge.

The biggest challenge was that the toys are not at all consistent,” Rucker says. “They are different sizes and shape and range from two to four inches in height. And, they have eject far enough away from the machine that the dog doesn’t harm the machine.”Rucker says that to handle those challenges, the designers decided to let gravity and the toys shape dictate how the toys rolled off. The end result is a machine that keeps dogs occupied and happy while their owners are away.

More information is available by Dogopolis LLC, 530 E. 8th St., Ste.102, Oakland, CA 94606, or by calling 800-995-8996.