good question.... I just met Kong (my pups) trainer and he said Kongs (dog toy) and hard toys are bad for dogs. He said you want to train the dog to have a soft mouth so buy soft toys. Training a dog to bite a Kong is training them to bite hard and when they are pups they learn whatever they bite to bite hard. He is a police dog trainer with 30 yrs experience and says they use kongs to train police dogs and they shouldn't be use for puppies. What do you all think>?