Destructopup Case Files, Victims #1, 3-8: Rope Toy Collection

Chewy LOVES rope toys. They're great for chewing, playing tug, going shaky shaky, and most importantly, shredding. Sometimes he eats the little fibers that he rips off, and a day later, rainbows come out the other end.

Upon getting a brand new rope toy, Chewy runs around the house chewing in every single one of his favorite spots. Then he wants to play tug with it forever, and after a few days or weeks of innocent chewing, he finds a weak spot in the toy. That's when he enters DESTRUCTOPUP MODE, and we end up with one of these victims here:

That last orange one used to be in the shape of a bone, but he removed all the end bits - they promptly ended up in the trash. I have already shared the tale of Froggy before, so I will focus on the other ones here. If a rope toy has a tennis ball on the end and you leave Chewy with it unattended even for a few minutes, he will defuzz the tennis ball. If a rope toy has knots on the end, he will pull on the knots until he can undo them, then unravel the rope and shred the strings. If a rope toy has all its ends tucked in, you can bet that Chewy will eventually find and expose them.

I keep Chewy's rope toys on the counter when no one is around, so the destruction is a rather slow process. He is so happy when pulling apart his ropes, sometimes I just don't have the heart to tell him no. But once he has done a certain amount of damage, I take them out of his toy rotation and they end up sitting in the cabinet. Every now and then I bring one out when I need to keep him distracted, like while doing his nails, because his love of destroying rope toys is pretty all-consuming. I decided it was finally time to throw out this collection of dilapidated ropes, but I let Chewy play with them one last time. He was ecstatic, and wanted to hoard them all.

Oh, happy day!

But when I threw them all in the trashcan, he was not so pleased.

Not the garbage!

You're gonna buy me more, right?

We currently have one of those 4' ropes made from t-shirt strips. It has been holding up pretty well with only supervised play, but I'm sure Chewy has been plotting its demise for quite awhile. It's only a matter of time!

Destructopup Case Files, Victim #2: Duckie

Chewy got an Aussie Naturals Duck in one of his PetBoxes last year, and he immediately loved it. Usually, he waits for me to unpack his goodies, but this time he grabbed it out of the box himself. It had lots of different textures and smells: a leather head, felt wings, rope neck & legs, and coconut fiber filling. For a dog who loves to chew and play tug, this was like winning the lottery.




Duckie was good for chewing,

 snuggling,

shaking,

and fetching (although he usually kept it for himself instead of bringing it back).

We also played tug with it often, but it's head came apart once, and it was quite difficult to shove back on. He also liked to run around with it in his mouth during zoomies.

The legs were the first to go, since Chewy is a pro at unraveling rope. When he started pulling strings out of the legs, it was time to cut them all off.

Next, he bit off a wing.

Eventually, he chewed the butt open, exposing the coconut fibers inside.

It would be difficult to sew its butt back together since the fabric is unraveling, so I have given up on duckie.

Toy Lifespan: 4 months

Destructopup Case Files, Victim #1: Froggy

Chewy got a Kong Tugger Knots Frog Tug Toy for Christmas. It has a long, furry body, a frog face with minimal stuffing, a squeaker in the butt, and rope running through the body with knots in the center and loops at either end- the perfect combination of toy parts. It was the first present Chewy unwrapped (with assistance), and he immediately started chewing on it. In Chewy code, that means he likes it.

What's this? ... Can I eat it?

It started off with a semi-cute, doofy frog face:

Within a few days, he discovered that he could rip off fur bits from its body to reveal the woven part holding the fabric together. Then, he realized he could rip apart the woven part and get to the stuffing in the frog head. That's when we decided to doctor the frog by removing all the stuffing and sewing the holes shut. After repeated rounds of sewing and playing, the back of the frog's head was gone and a third of the originally concealed rope was now exposed. Even so, it was good for playing tug,

carrying around, 

and lounging.

Froggy's time in Chewy's arsenal of toys is now near its end. Its face is weirdly disfigured and its knotty guts are all hanging out. 

Chewy is an expert at unraveling knotted ropes, so Froggy is going into the cabinet of destroyed toys for now.

Toy Lifespan: 1 month