Dog Toys and Pet Enrichment Products: AI Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

The August 2026 benchmark was a quiet month, with no brands moving beyond normal month-to-month variation. Kong Company remained the category leader in valid recommendation coverage at 83.5% in August 2026, down from 86.0% in July 2026, and held a 19.5 percentage point gap over the next closest brand, West Paw. Outward Hound recorded the largest coverage increase, rising to 51.6% in August 2026 from 46.6% in July 2026. West Paw posted the largest decline, falling to 64.0% in August 2026 from 66.8% in July 2026, though both moves remained within normal variation.

Looking at the full two-month series, Kong Company's coverage eased by 2.5 percentage points, West Paw declined by 2.8 points, and Nylabone slipped by 1.9 points, while Outward Hound gained 5.0 points across the period. BarkBox(parent: Bark Inc) and Chuckit!(brand of Petmate/Doskocil Mfg) recorded no qualified presence in either month.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 641 qualified observations in August 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. The August 2026 series matched this full breadth of six families.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Dog Toys and Pet Enrichment Products

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The funnel below shows how raw observations narrow to the qualified benchmark set.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. AI Market Discovery Methodology

Current Brand Standings

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations with at least one non-empty recommendation list containing the brand.
• Top-three rate: share of observations where the brand appears in the first three recommended slots.
• Rank-one rate: share of observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative mention share, scaled from -1 to 1.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

The month was quiet overall, with all movements falling within normal month-to-month variation. None of the six tracked brands moved beyond that range this month.

Outward Hound recorded the largest coverage gain, rising 5.0 percentage points from 46.6% in July 2026 to 51.6% in August 2026. Its presence rate also grew over the same period, from 48.2% to 54.4%.

West Paw posted the largest decline, falling 2.8 points from 66.8% in July 2026 to 64.0% in August 2026. Kong Company's coverage also slipped 2.5 points, from 86.0% to 83.5%, even as its rank-one rate edged up to 63.2% in August 2026 from 63.0% in July 2026.

Category Leader: Kong Company

Kong Company held the top valid recommendation coverage for the second consecutive month, at 83.5% in August 2026. Its presence rate was 88.0% in August 2026, and its rank-one rate of 63.2% remained the highest in the vertical. Kong Company's net sentiment held at 1.0 in both months.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Among the leading brands, Kong Company's dominance is most visible in first-position placement.

Similar coverage can still hide different first-position rates. West Paw and Outward Hound posted comparable top-three rates in August 2026, at 44.5% and 37.3% respectively, yet Outward Hound converted more of those appearances into first-place recommendations, with a rank-one rate of 8.4% compared to West Paw's 3.0%.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations fell into the brand recommendation class in both months.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing and value or multi-brand comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, or private and sponsored channels. A metric movement alone does not establish causality.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index tracks how often and how prominently brands appear across major AI and search surfaces in response to consumer discovery queries. It is a neutral, repeatable industry benchmark.

• AI Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Authority Value

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The public industry benchmark shows category-level standings. A company-level Authority Index can go deeper.

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