Puppy loves to chew on her toys, and yeah that's a given for most puppies. She loves to de-stuff, eviscerate, and then consume the soft toys, but also really enjoys the hard rubber toys that bounce. We had given her a tennis ball to play with, but after playing with it for a bit, she just sat there with the tennis ball in her mouth and chewed and chewed and chewed on it. My sisters large black labs often did the same thing with tennis balls and apparently have developed some long term dental problems because of their habit.
It turns out that long term chewing on tennis balls (as opposed to just having them in their mouth for fetch) can wear down the enamel on dogs teeth, so a racquetball is a better option. Since puppy loves, loves to chew and also enjoys a bouncing bounding toy, we decided to see if she'd like a racquetball instead. Did she ever.
We bought a tube of racquetballs (about $6 for three of them which makes them among the cheapest dog toys) and it was puppy love from there.
She plays with her racquetball, sitting and chomping on it - scronch, scronch, scronch, schronch, scronch, scronch, then POP!! (and it actually does make an audible pop sound) as it pops out of the side of mouth, then shoots across the room. At this point she jumps up, tracks it down at high speed and repeats the process.
It's a highly entertaining process to watch. Occasionaly the ball squirts out and hits me, or Tito in the head, or Shaak Ti in the butt while she's sleeping. It's not a perfect system, yet.
Eventually racquetballs can split and break, so we'll watch carefully to make sure she can't ingest any racquetball pieces. But for now it's a prized toy in her collection.
3 comments:
I can imagine that Tito LOVES getting hit in the head by the errant raquet ball too...
Another good source for cheap(er) dogs toys is the children's toy aisle in your local Target or Walmart. The generic plush toys there are generally cheaper than the ones in the pet aisle, and they fall apart at the same rate :)
Katie - yes Tito LOVES it, especially when he's in the middle of a nap or caught unawares.
Sara - thanks to Alycia we are well acquainted with the dollar bin at Target. I can't speak for her, but I'd say it's one of Alycia's more favoritest things in the world.
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