What Can a Dog on Crate Rest After TPLO Play With? Toys, Lick Mats and Chews, and the Calories Inside Them

The best toy for a dog on crate rest is his own dinner, served slowly. Put part of his normal food in a KONG, a lick mat or a snuffle mat, and give it while he is lying down. Avoid anything that gets him up and moving (balls, tug, play with other dogs) until the surgeon says so; the discharge sheets ban running and jumping for about eight weeks, and some ban play outright. Be honest about what a toy does: nobody has shown that a lick mat or a KONG calms a dog, and the one controlled KONG study found more activity, not less. And count the filling. A tablespoon of peanut butter is about 96 calories, and a dog on crate rest needs fewer than usual.

Three in the afternoon#

The first days can be easier than you expect. He came home sleepy and sore, and he slept. Then a day comes when he feels better than his leg is, and he starts to want his life back. He whines at the crate door. He chews the bars. He watches you walk past with the look that says he has been very patient.

This is the stretch the eight-week restrictions are written for: a dog who now wants to jump, spin or launch himself at the door, in a leg that is still healing. And the discharge sheet covers it in a single line: no running, no jumping, often no playing.

The gear for these weeks (the crate or pen, the sling, the cone, traction on the floors) is on our TPLO recovery gear checklist. This page is about what goes inside the crate with him.

So the question you typed is the right one. Not "what toy will he like", but what can fill eight weeks of afternoons without putting the knee at risk. This page answers that, and it answers a second question nobody asks: what all that filling does to his weight.

What the surgeons actually say about toys and play#

We read three TPLO home-care sheets (one from a university teaching hospital, two from specialist groups), a university news article on TPLO recovery, and three sources that talk about crate enrichment. The restriction is consistent. What to do instead is mostly missing.

Sources: ^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]}

Two things come out of that table. The first is that the ban is on movement, not on toys. No sheet we read says "no toys". They say no running and no jumping; Missouri adds no playing, MedVet no fetching and no rough housing, MedVet and Anderson Moores no other dogs. The second is that the sources which do talk about toys all point the same way: things the dog uses while lying still, and meals rather than extras. The Cornell page is about a groin muscle injury, not TPLO, but its crate advice is the same advice.

The rule: a toy that keeps him lying down#

Sort every toy in the house by one question. Does he use it lying down, or does it get him up?

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The chew row deserves a word, because "give him a bone" is a common crate-rest tip, and one large veterinary charity's TPLO tips say "From Kongs to bones to puzzles".^[10] Fraser Hale, a board-certified veterinary dentist, puts natural bones of any kind, nylon and hard plastic bones, antlers, large rawhides, dried hooves, bully sticks and ice cubes on his list of things not to give, with a test anyone can apply: "If you would not want me to hit you in the kneecap with it, do not let your dog chew on it!" A dog with eight weeks to fill and nothing else to do may chew harder and longer than usual. That is the worst time to hand him something that breaks teeth.

Ohio State's handout adds the other chew risk: "Ingestion of pieces can be an emergency leading to choking or intestinal blockages requiring surgical intervention." A second surgery is the last thing this recovery needs. Supervise any chew, and take it away when it starts coming apart.

dogorthopedic.com

Does a toy actually calm him? What the studies found#

Lick mats are sold as calming. KONGs are sold as the answer to crate boredom. Here is the evidence.

• Lick mats. We searched the veterinary literature for lick mats and found no study of them in dogs. None. The claim that licking calms a dog may be true; nobody has tested it.
• A stuffed KONG in confined dogs. In the one controlled study we found, eight kennelled laboratory dogs were given a KONG Extreme stuffed with treats and compared with nine dogs given a sham treatment. The researchers concluded the toys "increase the level of activity (exercise)" and seemed to reduce barking, at least in the short term.^[11] More activity. For a kennelled lab dog with nothing to do, that is a welfare gain. For a dog nine days out of knee surgery, it is a reason to give the toy while he is lying in the crate, not loose in a room.
• Toys for pet dogs. A 2023 study gave companion dogs toys over twelve days and found the toys "did not significantly alter their activity level, rate of food consumption, or cognitive bias", with only a slight improvement in the cognitive-bias test for dogs given more complex toys and no significant behavioural difference between simple toys and puzzle toys.^[12]
• Long-lasting chews. In a crossover study of 20 dogs left alone for 20 minutes, a long-lasting chew kept dogs engaged longest over the session, and in the first five minutes gave lower arousal scores than kibble in a dispensing toy.^[13] The work was done at the Waltham Petcare Science Institute, which belongs to Mars, a maker of dog chews. And twenty minutes is not eight weeks.
• Dogs recovering from surgery. We found no study of any toy, puzzle or chew in dogs after an operation.

So hold this plainly: a toy is not a sedative. What a frozen KONG or a lick mat can do is make the time pass while he lies still, and spread his food across the day. That is worth doing. It is not the same as solving restlessness.

If he still cannot settle, that is a call to the surgeon, not a reason to buy a better toy. Restlessness can be pain, and pain is theirs to treat. Calming medication is also something your vet can discuss. In an open-label study of 36 dogs after orthopedic surgery, given trazodone (with tramadol for the first three days) for at least four weeks and assessed again at 8 to 12 weeks, 32 owners (89%) reported that confinement tolerance and calmness improved moderately or extremely, and no dog was withdrawn for side effects.^[14] There was no placebo group and the owners knew the drug was given, so read that as encouraging, not proven. The drug and the dose are your vet's decision, not ours.

The calories nobody counts#

Here is the part that the toy lists leave out. Every frozen KONG has something in it. And a dog on crate rest needs less than he did before surgery: on the Pet Nutrition Alliance's factors below, an inactive dog needs roughly 75 to 88% of what a typical neutered adult does (our arithmetic: 1.2 to 1.4 against 1.6).

The CARE sample discharge instructions are the only post-operative source we found that puts a number on this: "we do recommend cutting back the amount you feed by 20-30% during the healing process so that your dog does not gain weight since they will be less active." And on puzzles: "it is important not to feed extra calories during recovery so that they don't gain weight. Food puzzles should be used in place of the normal food bowl."^[5]

That is the sentence to take away. The filling comes out of his dinner, not on top of it.

To see why, put a number on the commonest filling. USDA data puts smooth peanut butter at 598 kcal per 100 g, and two tablespoons at 32 g, so a level tablespoon is about 96 kcal.^[15] Now set that against what a resting dog needs. The Pet Nutrition Alliance gives the standard starting formula, resting energy = 70 × (body weight in kg)^0.75, and a factor of 1.2 to 1.4 for an inactive or overweight-prone dog, with the warning that individual dogs "can vary by as much as 50% from the predicted values".^[16]

Our arithmetic from those two sources:

One tablespoon a day, on top of a full bowl, for eight weeks. For a small dog that is a sixth to a fifth of everything he needs, added every day, while he is lying in a crate.

The two sources also agree with each other in a way worth seeing. A typical neutered adult dog is fed at about 1.6 times resting energy on the Pet Nutrition Alliance table. Cut that by CARE's 20 to 30% and you land at 1.12 to 1.28 times resting energy, which overlaps the bottom of the 1.2 to 1.4 "inactive" range. The handout and the formula, written for different purposes, arrive at roughly the same place.

Why weight matters here: in 1,519 TPLO procedures, the odds of a complication were about 10% higher for every extra 4.5 kg of body weight (an odds ratio of 1.10).^[17] That study compared heavier dogs with lighter ones at the time of surgery; it did not measure weight gained during recovery, and we found no study that has. What both discharge sheets that mention weight say is about the longer run: Anderson Moores advises a lean body weight "to minimise the long-term effects of OA" (osteoarthritis), and CARE calls a lean body condition "crucial" because it "will decrease arthritis development". Weight he puts on during these eight weeks is weight he carries after them, until someone takes it off again.

What to put in the toy instead#

^[18]

Canned pumpkin here means plain pumpkin, not pie filling, which is sweetened and spiced. And check every jar of peanut butter. The FDA warns that "some peanut and nut butters" contain xylitol, and tells owners who use nut butter as a treat or a pill vehicle to "check the label first". In dogs, xylitol can cause a dangerous drop in blood sugar "within 10 to 60 minutes".^[19]

dogorthopedic.com

The free version comes first#

You do not need to buy anything for this. Before any toy:

• Hand-feed part of a meal as a training session. Dr Bain recommends teaching "stationary behaviors such as down stay, tracking and hand targeting" during confinement. A nose touch to your palm, a chin rest, a down-stay while you step back: each one paid with a piece of kibble from the day's ration. He never has to stand.
• Scatter kibble in a rolled towel or a folded blanket on the crate floor, and let him nose it out. That is a snuffle mat made from the linen cupboard. Supervise in case he chews the towel.
• Slow the bowl. A muffin tin with kibble in the cups, used lying down, does the job of a slow feeder.

The one thing worth paying for, if he is a dog who would rather work than sleep, is a toy that holds a frozen meal.

The one thing worth buying#

A KONG Classic is a hollow rubber cone that you can fill with soaked food and freeze, so his meal comes out slowly while he lies down. At $13.96 for the Large on Amazon on 3 November 2026 (read from Amazon's product API that day),^[20] it is the one thing this page suggests paying for. The case for it is simply time: the same food that disappears from a bowl comes out of a frozen KONG slowly, while he lies down.

What it is bad at, and who should not buy it:

• It is sold as a fetch toy. KONG markets the Classic's "unpredictable bounce for games of fetch".^[21] Not now. MedVet brings throwing toys back only at its week-eight stage. In the crate it is a feeding toy.
• It does not calm a dog by itself. See the studies above. If he is frantic, a KONG will not fix it.
• The maker's own tip is the calorie trap. KONG suggests kibble with "a dash of peanut butter". Make the dash small and take it out of his day.
• Size it to the mouth, not just the weight. KONG's chart puts the Large at 30 to 65 lb and the X-Large at 60 to 90 lb, so a 70 lb Labrador is an X-Large. KONG's rule is that the largest ring should be bigger than the back of the dog's mouth, and to size up if in doubt.^[22]
• Hard chewers. The red Classic is for average chewers. KONG says power chewers should go up one or two sizes or use the black Extreme, and the toy carries "Supervised use only" and "Discontinue use if damaged". Stay within sight while he has it, whatever kind of chewer he is, and if he bites chunks off rubber, choose a bigger size or the Extreme.

The full sizing chart and the questions people ask before buying are on our KONG Classic page.

A day of crate rest, filled from one bowl#

Here is what one day can look like, built entirely from his normal ration less the cut your surgeon agrees. Times are an example, not a rule.

Everything here happens lying down or standing still on the crate floor. Nothing needs him to jump, turn fast or chase. The leash toilet trip is the one time he crosses the house, so lay traction on that route; our page on dogs slipping on floors covers the cheap fixes, and the stairs after TPLO page covers the steps to the garden. If he is clearly sore, or the incision looks angry, put the training sessions aside and call the clinic; our TPLO recovery guide covers what is normal week by week.

dogorthopedic.com

What we do not know#

• Whether any toy helps a dog recover from surgery. No study has tested toys, puzzles, lick mats or chews in dogs after an operation.
• Whether lick mats calm dogs at all. We found no study.
• How much weight dogs gain during crate rest. We found no study that measured it. The 20 to 30% cut is a handout's recommendation, not a trial result, and your surgeon may give you a different number.
• Whether tug is harmful in a dog lying down. No sheet we read names tug. We count it as play, which Missouri's sheet bans outright, and leave it for the surgeon to clear.

What to do this week#

Tonight, take his bowl away and give tomorrow's breakfast another way: soaked and frozen in whatever hollow toy you have, or scattered in a rolled towel on the crate floor. Ask the clinic one question at the next call or recheck: "How much should he be eating while he's this inactive?" Write the number on the food bin. Go through the toy basket and put the balls, the tug rope and anything you would not want hitting your kneecap somewhere he cannot see them. And if he still cannot settle after a week of this, ring the surgeon. Do not wait for the eight-week recheck.

Stillness is not something he agrees to. He does not know why he is in the crate, and he will not decide to keep the knee safe. Every quiet hour in these eight weeks is one somebody gave him, out of his own dinner, lying down. That is the work of these eight weeks.

Sources#

1. University of Missouri Veterinary Health Center. TPLO client handout, 2021. vhc.missouri.edu — "absolutely no running, jumping, playing or stairs for the first eight weeks following surgery". No mention of toys. Read 3 November 2026.
2. Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine. "TPLO Recovery: Setting Pets Up For Success." Pet Talk, 18 June 2025. vetmed.tamu.edu — a university news article quoting a surgeon: eight weeks kept calm, confined when unsupervised, leash-only walks. Its lean-weight line is about long-term mobility with arthritis, not post-operative feeding. Read 3 November 2026.
3. MedVet. TTA and TPLO Home Recovery Guide. cdn.medvet.com — no rough housing or play with other dogs; "DO NOT ALLOW ANY SUDDEN STARTS OR STOPS, i.e. FETCHING"; at the week-eight stage, "spend 5-10 minutes throwing toys or playing fetch". Read 3 November 2026.
4. Anderson Moores Veterinary Specialists. Sample TPLO/TTA discharge instructions. andersonmoores.com — no play with other dogs, running, stairs or furniture; keep at a lean body weight. Read 3 November 2026.
5. Canine Arthritis Resources and Education. Sample Post-Operative Discharge Instructions, December 2025. caninearthritis.org — cut food 20–30% during healing; food puzzles "in place of the normal food bowl"; frozen KONGs with canned pumpkin. The issuing hospital is not named. Read 3 November 2026.
6. Cornell University Riney Canine Health Center. Iliopsoas injury. vet.cornell.edu — crate enrichment line quoted; the page is about a groin muscle injury, not TPLO. Read 3 November 2026.
7. Stilwell N. "Crate expectations: Realistic strategies for postoperative confinement." dvm360, summarising a lecture by Melissa Bain, DVM, DACVB. dvm360.com — trade article. Read 3 November 2026.
8. Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center, Behavioral Medicine. "Toys and Puzzles for Your Pet," 2024. vmc.vet.osu.edu — client handout. Read 3 November 2026.
9. Hale FA. "Owners are Breaking Their Dog's Teeth or The 'Kneecap Rule'." Hale Veterinary Clinic. haleveterinaryclinic.ca — client handout by a board-certified veterinary dentist. Read 3 November 2026.
10. MSPCA-Angell. "Helpful Tips for TPLO Recovery." mspca.org — "From Kongs to bones to puzzles". Read 3 November 2026.
11. Schipper LL, Vinke CM, Schilder MBH, Spruijt BM. "The effect of feeding enrichment toys on the behaviour of kennelled dogs (Canis familiaris)." Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 2008;114(1-2):182-195. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2008.01.001 — controlled study, 8 laboratory dogs given a stuffed KONG Extreme vs 9 sham-treated controls. Author offprint, Utrecht University repository, read 3 November 2026.
12. Chan K, Arellano C, Horowitz A. "Here Puppy, Chew on This: Short-Term Provision of Toys Does Not Improve Welfare in Companion Dogs." Animals. 2023;13(21):3340. doi:10.3390/ani13213340 — before/after study over twelve days. Abstract read 3 November 2026.
13. Flint HE, Atkinson M, Lush J, Hunt ABG, King T. "Long-Lasting Chews Elicit Positive Emotional States in Dogs during Short Periods of Social Isolation." Animals. 2023;13(4):552. doi:10.3390/ani13040552 — crossover study, n = 20, Waltham Petcare Science Institute (Mars); the lower-arousal result is for the first five minutes of the 20-minute session. Abstract read 3 November 2026.
14. Gruen ME, Roe SC, Griffith E, Hamilton A, Sherman BL. "Use of trazodone to facilitate postsurgical confinement in dogs." JAVMA. 2014;245(3):296-301. doi:10.2460/javma.245.3.296 — prospective open-label clinical trial, 36 client-owned dogs after orthopedic surgery, owner-reported outcomes, no control group. Abstract read 3 November 2026.
15. USDA FoodData Central. Peanut butter, smooth style, with salt. FDC ID 174266 — 598 kcal per 100 g; 2 tbsp = 32 g. FDC record, figures read via the FDC API 3 November 2026.
16. Pet Nutrition Alliance. "Calculating Calories Based on Pet Needs." petnutritionalliance.org — RER = 70 × BW(kg)^0.75; inactive 1.2–1.4 × RER; neutered adult 1.6 × RER; individual variation up to 50%. Read 3 November 2026. The table on this page is our arithmetic from it.
17. Coletti TJ, Anderson M, Gorse MJ, Madsen R. "Complications associated with tibial plateau leveling osteotomy: a retrospective of 1519 procedures." Canadian Veterinary Journal. 2014;55(3):249-254. PMID 24587508 — complication OR 1.10 per 4.5 kg body weight. Abstract read 3 November 2026.
18. USDA FoodData Central. Pumpkin, canned, without salt (FDC 168450), 34 kcal per 100 g; Yogurt, Greek, plain, nonfat (FDC 170894), 59 kcal per 100 g. Read via the FDC API 3 November 2026.
19. US Food and Drug Administration. "Paws Off Xylitol; It's Dangerous for Dogs." fda.gov — read 3 November 2026.
20. Amazon listing B0002AR0I8 (KONG Classic, Large), price and seller read via the Amazon Creators API, 3 November 2026: $13.96, sold by Pattern Products, in stock.
21. KONG Company. KONG Classic product page. kongcompany.com — size chart, "Supervised use only", "Discontinue use if damaged", fetch marketing, stuffing tip. Read 3 November 2026.
22. KONG Company. "Choosing the Right KONG." kongcompany.com — the ring-bigger-than-the-back-of-the-mouth rule, size up when between sizes. Read 3 November 2026.