Mid summer I got a Skin-eez stuffing free squirrel dog toy to product test. My product testing philosophy goes something like this.
If a PR firm, or company sends me something for free and I like it, I will blog about it. If I don't, I won't trash them. I assure you that there have been a lot of things that don't make the blog review cut, but I appreciate the chance to try them and know what is out there.
If I buy a product with my own hard earned green and don't like it, then it is fair game.
When one of my kids entered the back yard with the squirrel Skin-eez fresh from a UPS delivery truck, me and the dogs were testing a dog toy at the time, and let's just say that one never got reviewed. My kids love opening the products to test, and as my youngest opened the box from Skin-eez, she had a rapt audience of 5 dogs. How they knew it was for them, I have no idea. When she took the squirrel out of the box there was a massive interest in it right away.
The toy is not intended for games of hard tug of war slaughter, so I put it away until after my 3 foster puppies were placed. There is something very appealing about these toys to dogs, and they all wanted it, while I could not get them to even look at the "ain't gonna review that one toy."
This summer with 4 stuffing pulling foster pups, I can tell you that I would sure have appreciated a stuffing free toy. We had quite a few stuffing "snowy" days here, and unfortunately for my kids, not all the stuffing that got pulled out came from dog toys. I don't usually buy stuffed toys for dogs. Stuffed dog toys are too similar to my kids favorite stuffed animals, and it can be difficult for dogs to tell which is theirs, and which is not. Stuffed toys as general rule don't last, unless you have one of those dogs who carries things around like it is their "baby."
The Skin-eez toy seems tough. I don't plan on putting it through rigorous testing with lots of dogs to see how long before they destroy it, because Finney loved it. After graciously sharing his house with the foster pups this summer, I am giving him exclusive rights to this toy. He is extra keen to chase it, fetch it and throw it around. There is something appealing to dogs about the way it flops around like prey. I can say that it lived through 5 minutes of chase and tug with 4 dogs before I could get back.
The toy is intended to be a tough stuffie. It is not intended for power chewers or to throw to a pack of pups to eviscerate. It is the kind of toy you are supposed to use for playing with and /training your dog. When we are done with it, it is put away.
Finn says it is the best thing he ever got in the mail and that is good enough for me.
Available on line and locally, the price is about 7 bucks.
Finney says Thank you muchly.
Dr Ian Dunbar has a great You Tube short on training ideas and rules for soft toys. Check it out.
1 comment:
No disrespect to Dr. Dunbar and I'm sure I would have different rules if I had children but I have two sets of dog toys: set one is what is currently in the big toy basket in my kitchen and contains plush puzzle toys, wubbas, nylabones, rope bones, some regular plushies and a few sterilized bones. Set two is a second set of less favored plushies, etc. that I pull out when a super destructive dog is staying with me. That way I don't have to protect Jellybean's wubba with my life :-) But I don't want my dogs to not have toys to play with freely.
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