Some toys ideas :)
With Puppy Class starting in a couple of days (you can still join HERE), here are some dog toys ideas. Dog toys are the only thing I enjoy shopping (HATE shopping anything else!), but seems like my dogs often prefer "recycled" toys over bought ones! Here is Ta's list of favorite toys:
1. Paper sleeves - before and after example 🙂 - she thinks it's really fun that you need to work hard to pick it up and she LOVES the sound it makes when she shakes it.
2. Old gloves - with or without tennis ball in it for extra weight. All my dogs love those floppy fingers.
3. Old sock filled with plastic bags - makes a fun sound when grabbing it. I also add squeakers from other dead toys if I have them.
4. Fake fur from my jacket's sleeves on a string - and yes, I still have this toy, it passes from one generation to another 🙂
HOWEVER, real dog toys are often more practical for training, so once the "creating drive" stage is over, I do switch to real dog toys and use whatever I find most practical for each dog. So here are our training toys:
The green hollee roller is To's - love it as you can toss it well + it's great for tugging - just enough stretchy for To! Bi is a much stronger tugger, so it's too stretchy for Bi and it gives me blisters, so Bi's toy is a boring hard plastic ring on the left. It can be thrown well and survives Bi's tugging as well. Le has an oval hollee roller - it's perfect to keep her teeth away! She might be little, but likes to tug so close to your hand that it gets dangerous! The fluffy tug toy is Bu's favorite - soft and squeaky! I don't toss toys for her at her age and this one works perfectly for tugging and chasing.
We have exactly the same toys!! Torvaig loved to shake plastic bags (after I made them flat so he couldn’t get stuck with his head)…the noise it gives he thinks is AMAZING! And I also took off fake fur from a skicoat and tied it to a long lungewhip for controlled chasing. ANd offcourse anything squeeky is fun. Now we have hollee rollers & the rubber ring as well!
Happy tugging!
Ha ha, yes, such interesting choices! 🙂
Haha we have the same favourite “recycled” toys 🙂 Thank you for article.
I really like the hollee roller for training, too, since I can throw it, it rolls well after landing and we can tug with it when the dog brings it back! But Mio kept biting it so close to my fingers when tugging, he ended up bitin me and caused my fingers to bleed all the time…
But now I have stuffed it (and also put a squeeker inside) and I have no bleeding fingers anymore 😀 This also makes the hollee roller a little heavier and easier to throw in the direction I want to throw it, ha ha 🙂
I’m SO happy with this toy, I just wanted to share it, in case someone else is having problems either with bleeding fingers or with throwing it all over the place 🙂
That a cool solution yes! Le does the same, so I only use oval holee rollers with her and hold it at the top, so she has to bite the ending and then I’m safe 🙂
Oh, it’s funny I don’t have problems with bitting when playing (hm, I use strings mostly…) but when feeding (and teaching), yes ! Little dog is really hungry ALL THE TIME ! He wants every kibble the faster as possible. He doesn’t really bite for it, but he’s not gentle and the repetition hurts my right hand (useless with the left one, already tried with heeling). His teeth are sharp haha. Do you have already meet this problem ?
Yeah, sure, it’s a typical one 🙂 TRy to deliver treats so he can’t just grab them out of your hand and encourage him to use a tongue -- praise and reward when he is gentle and remove the hand if he is biting.