Our dog’s toy arsenal has been quite limited because of his post-surgery cone, and he has had to adapt to continue to have fun. Some toys just don’t work with a cone. I am happy to report the horrid cone comes off today. We and he are heartily sick of it.
One toy that has proven a continued delight for him is the large, orange tennis ball in the header photo. I placed a smaller red ball next to it so you could see the size difference. The orange ball is about 7 inches in diameter. He plays with it in several ways. He loves to peel the orange cover off it. That orange cover is glued on really tightly, and I am amazed at the strength of his jaws and teeth. He also likes to slam the ball on the floor while holding the fabric scrap in his mouth, then shaking it violently. He rolls the ball and chases it all around living room. We like it because it is too large to roll under the furniture. He barks and whines for us to retrieve smaller balls. He also likes to have us hold the ball while he tugs and tugs the fabric scrap. A ball lasts about a week.
What have been your pets’ favorite toys? What were your favorite toys as a child. What toys would you buy for a child these days?
Trail Baboon 
The Birds like the wooden ladder.
I had a red Tonka fire truck that had a ladder. It’s now a vintage toy worth over $500.00. “Had”😔
Puzzles are my go to gift for kids. They can be chosen to fit the age of the recipient.
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Our grandson is 4 and loves puzzles.
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The Cat Dancer – long flexible wire with some thingy tied at the end – you can anchor it about anywhere and it bobs up and down as cat tries to catch the thingy… or you can torment the cat by keeping it just out of reach… : )
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Guinevere is a stuffy toy murderer. For most of her life, our living room has been a dog toy abattoir. Then during pandemic we found a lamb stuffed toy at Target. She loves this toy. They do eventually get destroyed, but they last weeks and weeks longer than any toy has ever lasted before. She nibbles on it instead of tears at it. I had a fairly large Target gift card in 2021 and I decided to splurge. I bought eight of these toys. I keep them in the closet and when one does eventually get chewed up, I pull out another one. And the dog is ecstatic.
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What about it do you think she likes so much?
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I haven’t the vaguest idea. I really can’t pick out one factor that distinguishes it from any of the other dog toys I’ve bought in the 50+ years I’ve had dogs. That leaves me with a slightly absurd idea; when we first got this toy I felt a little sheepish about letting her have it because it was Lamb Chop the beloved puppet of Sheri Lewis from my childhood. So I can only wonder if maybe my reluctance to having Lamb Chop eviscerated has somehow communicated itself emotionally to Guenevere. How’s that for silliness of the morning?
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Since you have nothing else, it sounds like a distinct possibility.
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We didn’t have Legos – they were just starting up, I think – but we did have homemade wooden blocks that my dad made and painted red and yellow – I remember sitting on the living room rug and building, and then my little sister would knock it down. I did like going to kids’ houses where there were Legos, though.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
My very favorite toys were those that sparked imagination. I have told my story here before of spending a lot of time between the ages of 4-6 pretending to be Annie Oakley (there was an Annie Oakley TV show at the time). The toys that accompanied that were a red cowboy hat, toy six-shooters in a holster that matched the hat, and a stick horse. I would gallop down the hill to my dad’s office where he was the Mills Co Extension Director for a visit, then a spin in his secretary, Marilyn’s, chair. Next I would proceed through town rescuing people from all the evils I witnessed on the Annie Oakley show (usually bullies, bad guys, and an occasional wild animal.)
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Our son and DIL like toys by Melissa and Doug. Our grandson loves dinosaurs. This Thanksgiving when we visited in Brookings, we got him some plaster encased toy dinosaur bones, and he and his Opa spent hours carefully scraping away the plaster to reveal the bones, just like real paleontologists.
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It made for quite a mess, and there was plaster and dust all over the place!
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Most favorite toys in our house are the mice from Go Cat’s “Cat Catcher” wand toy. Furry mice are acceptable if we don’t have any more Go Cat mice. Those glittery pompoms they sell both at the pet store and the craft store are pretty popular too. Many of our cats have played fetch as youngsters–we toss the mousie or pompom a few times and they figure out pretty quickly that if they bring the toy back to the general vicinity of the human, the human will throw it again (this can go on for 20-30 minutes with an energetic adolescent). I had one cat, a rather autistic tortie, that liked to pluck the tinsel out of the glitter pompoms while staring directly at a person–it was pretty creepy, like being watched by Hannibal Lecter while he sharpened a knife.
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YA had a huge assortment of stuffed toys when she was little. And she preferred these to almost any other kind of game or toy. Really up until she was about eight or nine she would drag one of the other of her stuffed animals along with her in the car. There were times when I would say ,”Tuesday needs to stay in the car” or “Lapin needs to stay in the car” and she was always amenable to that.
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Yes, Joel had Bunny, and who knows why that one wone out over all the other stuffed toys and puppets?
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I bought Humphrey a new squeaky toy today. That’s what he likes, anything squeaky. This is a football, so it bounces and rolls funny and while he’s picked it up a few times he hasn’t quite decided he’s gonna play with it yet. It’s fun to watch him try to get a stuffed toy and a ball in his mouth at the same time, he’ll spend quite a while trying. He doesn’t shred anything, he just likes to make the noise.
I did a lot of Legos, grandma had tinker toys and Lincoln logs, but I think both were picked up at the church rummage sale and there didn’t seem to be very many pieces.
We also had a magnetic thing; little metal pieces in a blue plastic tray that had magnets on it. Was fun to stick those things together. My brother had an erector set that I remember playing with a lot.
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I put an ear of corn on our bird feeder. When it’s empty and just the cob, both Bailey and Humphrey get very excited to get the cob. Humphrey will chew it into pieces. Bailey doesn’t know what to do with it, just that she got it.
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I’ve read that corn cobs are not safe for dogs. Here’s what one source has to say about it: “No, corn cobs are not safe for dogs. Even though corn isn’t toxic, the hard central cob is indigestible, sharp, and poses a big choking or intestinal blockage hazard. Never give your dog corn cobs. Even chopped-up corn cobs are dangerous.” Here’s another: “Always remove the corn from the cob before you offer it to your dog. The cob presents a huge choking risk for your dog or worse an internal blockage. No matter the situation, your dog should never be given the cob.”
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I didn’t know that. He isn’t intentionally eating it, just breaking it into bits, but I suppose he could accidentally ingest part of it.
When I husk sweetcorn, the dogs never pay any attention to those cobs. The chickens sure like it though and I’ve always got a crowd for that.
Thanks for the warning.
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Another for cats – after spending $ on cleverly designed toys, we found a ping pong ball was next best to the Cat Dancer.
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The Birds require frequent changes of toys they can chew. Plastic and metal are no good. Wood is best. It’s really interesting how they work those beaks.
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One of my favorite of Joel’s toys was given to him by my folks, who could not afford one when I was little… musical chime push toy – we called it a lawn mower.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?&q=vintage+fisher+price+musical+toys&docid=608054412003574741&mid=040CA635981267C11EF3040CA635981267C11EF3&view=detail&FORM=VDRVSR&ajaxhist=0
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This afternoon while confined in a basement bedroom, Kyrill got his cone off and chewed it up.
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Guess he knew he was done with it.
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Go Kyrill. And no one will blame you.
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Small objects that smell interesting are good cat toys. I kept a cannister of catnip and put some little stuffed mice and balls in it so they would take on the scent.My first cat, Franny, loved to play with cigarette filters that had been separated from the tobacco end.
A simple ball of tinfoil is better than nothing, too.
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