Food dispensing interlocking animal toy system

Abstract

An animal toy is configured to be connected to one or more separate toys of varying shape, size, color, and / or texture, together to create larger and more complex toy systems. The animal toy allows an almost endless variety of toy systems to capture the interest as well as challenge and develop the animal's problem solving skills. The animal toy is either solid or includes internal chambers for holding and ultimately dispensing food. The increased problem of extracting the food challenges and develops the animal's skills.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 12 / 138,238, filed on Jun. 12, 2008, by Shatoff et al., and entitled “FOOD DESPENSING INTERLOCKING ANIMAL TOY SYSTEM”, which in turn is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 811,340, filed on Mar. 25, 2004, by Shatoff et al., and entitled “FOOD DESPENSING INTERLOCKING ANIMAL TOY SYSTEM”, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,389,748, issued Jun. 24, 2008, which in turn claims the benefit of priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 457,835 filed Mar. 25, 2003, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein, including the drawings.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates to animal toys used to entertain and educate animals. More specifically, though not exclusively, the present invention relates to animal toys having the capability to connect to other similar toys thereby increasing the level of entertainment and education for animals.BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSU...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]The ability to present an animal with a toy having an increased level of difficulty for extracting the food challenges the animal and develops the animal's problem-solving skills and abilities. Combining solid and food dispensing toys in random combinations further increases the problem-solving skills required by the animal to completely extract the food from the toy system. As the animal develops its skills to the point where an additional challenge is needed, the configuration of toys may be changed, or a restriction may be added to the toy to slow down the flow of food from the internal chambers out of the toy system. The restriction increases the challenge to completely extract the food from the toy system.

[0011]a. It provides a more interesting and complex toy for animals to play with;

[0012]b. It increases the usefulness of a toy by eliminating the animal's loss of interest with simple toys;

[0013]c. It allows the animal's caretaker to regulate the toy's level of difficulty commensurate with the animal's skills and entertainment needs;

[0016]f. It gives the animal's caretaker a method of incrementally increasing the level of difficulty for purposes of training and developing problem solving skills; and

Problems solved by technology

The restriction increases the challenge to completely extract the food from the toy system.

It provides the challenge of disassembling the toy system in a non-destructive manner.

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