Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Best home-made toy my Rottie pup ever played with.


When I put this contraption together a few months ago I has one idea in mind but apparently, I may have invented the best home-made Rottie toy ever. For the last few months I have been watching baby Bess spend hours playing with a simple toy I made for her. Not only is she having a ball with it (pun intended) but it is actually very funny to watch her. We have a selection of Rottie toys around the house, mostly a ball of some sort, and they all manage to roll under the furniture from time to time. One day I decided to attach two balls together using an old puppy leash that was used when Bess was little, so that they wouldn't roll on the floor. Both balls had large holes that were meant to stick a Milk Bone dog biscuit in, so it made it very easy to join them together. The handle loop end of the leash was pushed through one ball and the clip end passed through the loop. Then I passed the clip end through the smaller ball and after cutting off the clip I tied the end into a large enough knot so it would not pull through the smaller ball. This allowed the smaller ball to slide back and forth between the larger ball and the knotted end.

While it works as planned indoors, it wasn't until Bess took it outside that I saw how much she enjoyed it. And Bess figured out how to get the most fun out of it. She can pick it up several ways, either by holding the loose ball in her mouth or holding the large knot which puts both of the balls down at one end. And when she runs with it she swings this in every direction. The most fun is when she swings it over her head and it wraps itself around her snout or her neck. This causes more running and more swinging until it gets free. Here are some close up pictures I have already posted here a few months ago.
This does seem to be a puppy toy because as the above pictures show, Ruffin shows no interest in playing with it even when Bess flings the ball at him. If anyone reading this blog has a young Rottie pup and wants to try making one of these toys I'd appreciate hearing your reaction. And look at the good part, it isn't patented. And the whole thing makes it very easy to throw fairly good distances, which gives Bess more opportunity to run. Like they say, make one for your best friend and have a ball with it.


1 comment:

  1. What a great idea. She certainly seems to be enjoying it. Nice job!

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