How I Treat Dog Toys

The image you see above may be a cool-looking dog toy, but the pup in the picture can’t play with it. Why, exactly?

As a huge video game guy with a big presence on social media, my future goal when I get dog toys would be only to use them for photography. My brother insists that I throw it, but I don’t want to. My mother on the end states that I’m just teasing him. The one you’re seeing is a Game Bone, which resembles the original Nintendo Game Boy. I first discovered it at a local Petco during a trip to Florida last holiday season. I didn’t pick it up, but I got one of my own this past summer to show the dog when he would visit during the Independence Day holiday weekend.

Dog toys would make the perfect candidate for a YKWBS episode. They can be any level of disappointment. Every time you get a new toy, it’s destroyed in four days. The cycle begins when you walk into the pet store and head down to the dog toy aisle. It’s divided into multiple sections, with such examples being the Durable Chew Zone, Heavy-Duty Play Experience, and Extreme Power-Chewer Series. Most of them don’t qualify as toys, but rather tactical equipment. Every single one has a little graphic on its tags that shows a rating system. Indestructible designs for $20? Even the rubber ones promise to withstand the sheer, gnashing, and existential fury for the strongest dogs out there.

So, you buy the toy and take it home for the dog. Most of the time, they only last 15 minutes, not 15 hours or days. You leave the dog with peace of mind to play with it and once you come back into the room, it will look like a rubber ducky exploded in a paper shredder. Stuffing is everywhere, looking like a crime scene committed by a tiny, very happy, furry psychopath. The worst part about them is these toys are advertised as satisfying for the natural urge of chewing. That’s false advertising because they aren’t. If the toy actually worked and lasted, the dog would get bored and lie down.

They are designed with built-in obsolescence that is insulting, like the toy companies working with the dogs. It’s a conspiracy. Your dog would get the immediate fleeting pleasure of destruction. The manufacturers get to sell you another $20 indestructible rubber rock the next week, while you’re busy vacuuming up the synthetic cotton guts of a purple unicorn and wonder if you have to do an emergency vet visit because you found the squeaker the dog tore out that’s the size of a golf ball in the middle of the carpet.

Any toy will always be a squeaker, and sometimes you won’t hear it squeak even once. They’ll chew through the noise-making mechanism faster than I eat through a bag of Doritos after a bad day. It’s basically skipping the squeaking phase and going straight to the choking hazard phase. I wouldn’t ask for much. What I’m expecting is a toy that would last longer than the time it takes to brew a cup of coffee. If you think that’s too much, try a toy made from pure granite, or perhaps a cinder block wrapped in Kevlar. You would want one that would say today isn’t the dog’s day, but rather the toy’s day.

Until then, you’ll be in every corner picking up the pulverized remains of a toy that costs more than a nice steak, while the dog is already eyeing the next thing to destroy. It could be your shoes, plastic objects, the couch, whatever they could get their eyes on. Dog toys are a way to entertain a pet, but they can be BS.