Much Loved Dog Toys

Dexter loves toys.  His favorite are the stuffed animal type.  He loves to rip them up when we aren't looking.  When he was a baby we had a plastic laundry hamper as his toy box and it was FULL.  We would go to second hand stores and buy him stuffed toys, as long as they didn't have plastic eyes or noses that he could pull out.  When he reached that age where he realized how strong get was, one by one, we cleaned up their stuffings.  So for a long time Dex didn't get too many stuffed dog toys.

One day we stopped by one of those specialty dog boutique stores, just to check it out, and they had this large stuffed ring shaped toy.  If felt really tough, so we read on the label that it was "tiger tested."  These toys are rated from 1 to 10 on a tough scale and this toy we happened across was a tough scale 10.  After about 10 minutes of talking this toy over, keep in mind this was a tiny store and here we were seriously talking about this one toy while the store owner looked at us, we decided we would give it a try.  It was $25 so we really had to decide if it was worth the money because Dex could potentially just shred the thing in 5 minutes.

So this was back in January.  He loved the toy. LOVED the toy.  And after about 2 hours of play and no holes we were sold. Embroidered onto it was their website, so I thought I would see what else this new found loved toy brand had to offer.  To our delight, there were loads of awesome toys.  The best part of the whole thing is they have a Dog Toy Tester Club that you can join.  Sign us up!  How it works is once a month they ship you a toy of your choice at 50% off and you pay $5 to ship, then you go onto their site and answer a few question about your experience with the toy.  Thats it.  You have a list of the toys you want them to send each month, then on which ever date, they mail it to you.  I'd say on average we spend about $12-15 per toy including shipping.  To me that's not a bad deal at all.  The first ring shaped toy is still alive, almost 7 months later, and that thing has gotten a lot of play time.

They have different types of tough toys.  Some are made from this really strong material, some are made like traditional stuffed toys, some rubber.  All that we have gotten have had at least 3 squeakers through out the toy.  They also come in little dog size too.  Its a really great and fun thing this company is offering.  Here is the link to their site, I dare you not to order at least one.  They have turned Dex into one spoiled and happy pup.

MyDogToy.com

I tried to get a good picture of him playing with it, but he is so busy shaking and throwing the thing around that it was a lost cause.  I will add new pictures as we get new toys.

Photo Stories - Episode 3

The Great Hunter and the Mysterious Bird

Dex thinks he is a great defender of our, or shall I say, his yard.  In the mornings when I let him out for the day, sometimes I take a moment and watch him bolt off at lightning speed to run every single innocent little bird out of the yard, and if there happens to be a squirrel in a tree or on the fence, then he runs double time and acts twice as tough.  After they have all scattered, then he makes a full prancing lap with his head held high just to show those intruders that this is his yard, and not a buffet.  In reality, he isn't a fast runner and is a giant chicken, so this routine is especially comical.  I'm sure he actually thinks that someday he will catch one of these critters and live up to his name. Which leads me into the story behind this photo.

Two things your need to know first.  Number one, Dexter is a digger.  Digging a hole is to Dexter as watching baseball is to Kam.  And number two, Kam and I meet at home everyday at 1 for lunch.

So one random, nothing special day, we meet for lunch like always and just before we head back to work, we joined Dex in the back yard to just see what was going on.  Dex trots off, no big deal, goes over by the tree and just starts starring straight down at the ground.  Weird.  So Kam walk over to see what he's looking at, and there was his hole, about the size of a large bowl, and in that hole was a dead bird. Safe place too keep your dead bird, in a hole, right? He's a thinker. So, being me, I quickly ran into the house to get the camera because this was such a odd event, that I needed some documentation.  So I ran back outside and snapped a quick shot just in time for Dex to grab his bird and start swinging it around the yard.  About that time, he figured out that we didn't want him to have this bird, so now it has become a game of keep-a-way.  Kam goes one way, Dexter and the poor bird, which is obvious by this point that Dexter has been swinging him around the yard all morning, go another.  We finally get him to settle down and before Kam takes it from him, I get this one last photo.  Priceless.

Now we begin to question where this bird came from.  We know that there is no way that Dex caught the thing.  So did it land in the tree and die, did it run into the side of the house and die, did the neighbors on the other side of the back fence chuck it over?  How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?  The world may never know.

This is how your dress gets dirty...

you come home from work to this.  A four legged mud pie.

And the funny part about it, this dog hates baths. 

Update April 1st

Mandee made the comment about how its funny that the dog that hates baths will sit in a cooler full of water.  I had sent her a picture a long time ago of Dex, and I just found it on my work computer.  This is Dex in all his prime...taken somewhere around August last summer.

Same look on his face. What a nut!

I love dogs....

Kameron shared this link with me this morning.  I couldn't help but pass it along...

Poor Denver, those damn kitty treats...everyone has their weakness!

oh and, Happy St. Patty's Day!