A cousin of mine owns a pet store and always brings treats and toys for the dogs at holiday time. Michelle gifted all five dogs in the family — my two dogs, Moose and Lally; my brother’s two dogs, Kuma and Lily; and my parents’ dog Becca — with little squeaky stuffed animals.
And the family watched in awe, humor, and horror as Kuma proceeded to mangle her little pink squeaky pig. The first thing to go? The snout. Then an ear, and an arm. Then the white cotton batting inside went flying! My cousin Steve decided it would be cute to take all the fluffy stuffing and tuck it under Kuma’s collar so she’d look like Santa Claus. It went well with the stuffing beard stuck to her whiskers!
The pet store owners jokingly commented that Kuma was the type of dog they wanted their customers to have — because they’d have to be buying a lot of toys! It can be challenging to entertain your family shredder, simply because nothing lasts long enough. Even the “super indestructible” toys I bought for Kuma last year were in pieces within an hour. And while an hour of entertainment is better than five minutes, it’s still another destroyed toy.
Toy shredding is a common problem (and complaint) for dog owners. It can be very expensive to keep your chew monster supplied with fresh toys to shred. Or time consuming, to keep restuffing and sewing the toys back together! I’ll confess to having done repair work on a few favorite dog toys in my day! Fur sister Becca used to have a blue bone she LOVED, and I did my best to fix it up once Kuma got her paws (and teeth) on it.
Some dog lovers with shredders in the family offered a few ideas for making disposable toys for your pups to enjoy. These may not be a good idea if your dog likes to actually swallow the things she shreds! But if she just likes to take things apart, try some of these ideas:
- Tuck a ball or other toy inside an empty tissue box and let your dog rip the box open to find the toy.
- I’ve let my dogs play with/chew on cardboard rolls — like from inside a roll of paper towels. It satisfies that need to destroy without being too unhealthy. It’s dietary fiber, right?
- Wrap treats or rawhides in plain brown paper and let your shredder unwrap them and find the prize inside.
- Look for toys with multiple parts that can be taken apart and reassembled. I’ve seen stuffed toys like this.
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