What’s That?

Dog brains are hard wired to react to certain smells and rapid movements, so it’s fairly easy to get their attention with smell or floppy dog toys. Dogs will investigate almost any movement, so a wide variety of dog toys move or have parts that wiggle in some manner to pique interest. Attractive smells are found in dog toys that incorporate food, or natural animal skins like rabbit or sheepskin.

• Our natural skin toys are found in the Furry Dog Toys category.
• The ‘Wonder Bars’ and ‘Wonder Sticks’ are located in the Webbing Dog Toys category.
• Our ‘Beastie Tug’ in the Other Dog Toys category.
• And our food toys are found in the Food Motivation Dog Toys category.

Sound Stimulation And Biting Pleasure

Noise makers like squeakers can get a varied reaction, some dogs love noisy dog toys, while others show no interest or worse, fear. This depends on the breed and on the individual dog.

Their sense of ‘bite’ also depends largely on the individual. Many dogs enjoy clamping onto, squashing, or ripping the stuffing from a toy, Talk about primal! Some dogs will prefer a firm but yielding object they can sink their teeth into. Not all dogs enjoy mouthing their toys or ripping things up, but most do and all high energy or high drive dogs will.

Breed Preferences

How dogs respond to these different sense stimulator dog toys will vary widely and breed does play a part. Certain breeds prefer visual stimulation or sound or scented toys. Herding dogs generally like visual toys while terriers may prefer natural sheepskin dog toys, and retrievers will chase almost anything. However, there isn’t any rule that will apply to all dogs. Breed and individual temperament combined with personality will play a large roll in what attracts and stimulates any dog.

How To Pick The Right Toy

A good play toy for your dog will include two or more of these different sense stimulators: “sight, bite sound or smell.” We use bright colors, and light and dark values, to enhance contrast for visual appeal and/or animal skins for smell stimulation. Then we offer a pleasant bite for a triple whammy, because once you’ve attracted your dog’s interest in a toy, it needs to offer something to keep him interested or he may just investigate it, then ignore it. For more information in choosing the right dog toy, read my article “Choosing The Right Interactive Dog Toy.”

In my article “How To Choose A Safe Dog Toy,” I talk more about good choices from the safety perspective, but basically dog toys should be strong enough to withstand tugging, griping, slobber and machine washing, yet soft enough to avoid injury with rough play. Interactive dog toys usually don’t withstand chewing because of these safety issues.

Safe Materials are important as well, because small pieces of these toys could be swallowed. Your dog toy needs to be safe, easy to clean, durable, appropriately sized, and should stimulate their natural senses.