A must for all puppies, not just Shihpoos, chew toys and play toys will save your furniture, your carpet, your door jams and your sanity. They can also turn play time into exercise time.
Favorites for Playing Tug-of-War
Do not ever get toys out of fabric of any kind. Your Shihpoo, like both of ours, will chew it to shreds in less than 30 minutes. We don’t like balls and toys with squeakers inside. Our Shihpoos don’t really care about the noise, but they sure love trying to get to the middle of anything chewy you offer them.
We have tried scores of toys for our dogs, from tennis balls and plastic bones to dolls and rubber balls. By far, their two favorite toys have been the two following:
A three rubber rings they LOVE to play tug-of-war with, either with us or with each other. The rings are solid rubber and puncture-proof. They have lasted an amazing year and a half and still show no sign of disintegrating. If you think you have found them, but you can easily bend or twist the rings, they are not durable enough.
Then, our son gave our first Shihpoo a small red and green football made of rubber mesh. It lasted longer than most, but even it is down to about 1 quarter of its original size. The puppies pull and tug and bite and yank.
They love both these toys because they are small enough to grab a hold of with their smaller mouths but big enough for you to grab the end of. Belief it or not, they WANT you to play tug-of-war. My oldest grabs the rings and brings them over to me, waiting patiently (usually) for me to start playing.
While playing, he growls and jerks the toy back and forth. If I win, he quickly tries to grab it again. If he wins, he quickly places it back in front of my hand to continue the game. So far, I have not found our puppies’ point of exhaustion with this game, but the record is over a half an hour.
