My older dog ripped the eyes or nose out of several of my stuffed animals almost three years ago, not long after I first got her. I didn’t even realize this was normal until the vet told me that all dogs do it. I’ve been keeping my newest stuffed animal, an anthropomorphic Dalmation with a big smile on his face, out of reach whenever she or the puppy is in the room because I fear that one of them will rip his eyes out.
Ummm. I gave up stuffed animals a few years ago. But, yeah most dogs will do that kinda thing.
I had sofa pillows once with a big button in the middle. My Beagle destroyed those.
Any toy the lil’wrekker left laying around was fair game.
I once rented a room in a home in which another room-renter owned a puppy with severe separation anxiety, The puppy tore up part of the couch!
My Crew rips the eyes out of Field Mice and Rabbits. Pretty grisly. But it keeps them happy. They aren’t allowed in the house.
I pick up stuffed animals at garage sales. Just 25 or 50 cents each.
My dog doesn’t care if they are used or on sale.
And they last longer than the squeeky, plastic ones.
I don’t own any stuffed animals myself, but my dog has quite a collection of them. And he never rips off the eyes or noses. But he will not rest until he has opened up the belly and ripped out the squeaker.
My golden retriever ripped the nose off of my “vintage” (read: I’ve had it for 35 years) Care Bear. She tried to get the eyes but they didn’t come off easy so she just gnawed the paint off them. Bear Bear lives inside a pillow case now.
I did once witness her kill a rabbit then eat its eyes.
With my current dogs, their toys that are stuffed animals, I don’t think they go after the eyes so much. Just whatever vector allows them maximum stuffing destruction.
I have greyhounds who LOVE stuffed animal toys. They will (it varies depending on personality, so this is a generalization) focus on anything hard they feel in it. Generally it’s the squeaker (double fun: hard AND noisy), sometimes it’s a particularly hard seam. If the toy has hard plastic eyes, it will be those.
BTW, do not let your dogs play with toys that have hard plastic pieces. They can break teeth on them or swallow them. Only let them have toys that have embroidered eyes.
We have three dogs. Two will treasure a stuffed animal, carrying it around and cuddling with it. The third dog works at a seam until she can gut the animal.
I think dogs who rip the eyes off are just ripping off something they can get a hold of. Make a stuffed animal and paint the eyes on, then sew “eyes” onto the butt of the toy. The butt-eyes will get torn off.
Georgie was the terror of all stuffed animals. Not only would the eyes be toast pretty quickly but the squeekers would be removed with almost surgical precision. She would support the toy with her paws and, with a look of serious concentration, proceed to gently tear at the seams. One could normally find the squeeker among the piles of stuffing but not always.
During the height of the mini Beanie Baby craze, my very young son had a collection due to the efforts of my Aunts who bought McDs happy meals, source of the MBBs on a daily basis to collect the damn things because, well, I don’t really know why. My wife and son were away for a few days visiting her parents and son had left his MBB collection (12 or so at that time) on a chair in the living room. Georgie, the young dog, was left alone when I went with a neighbor to his lake property for the evening. What I saw upon my return was a MBB bloodbath. Georgie found the collection. Painted eyes ripped off, stuffing everywhere and a very contented dog laying in the middle of the carnage. When I broke the news to my son, he actually seemed relived…
My CATS murdered a beanie baby. Those little beans things are very hard to clean up.
(No! Bear the cat, I have not forgotten)
Bessie, our big ol’ Texas Labrador cherished her stuffed hedgehog and carried it with her everywhere. Never damaged it.
On the other hand, our current spaniel, Pluto, starts destroying any and all soft toys within minutes of being given one. We have a small box of stuffed animals from his and previous dog eras for the eventual day when he stops being Destructo-Beast.
I have a big collection of stuffed animals. Most of them are on shelves that I installed in the closet of my home office, or on another shelving unit in the room. Our dog loves plush toys, hers are usually strewn all over the house. She doesn’t always tear them up but sometimes does, so I keep mine out of her reach.
The late Maggie Wonder beagle had a specific pattern with her stuffed animals.
[ol]
[li]Remove eyes[/li][li]Lobotomy[/li][li]Evisceration[/li][/ol]
Gordie doesn’t destroy his toys. He does weird and unnatural things to them instead.
My mom’s dog removed the eyes from a stuffed Kermit. I don’t think he was viewing them as eyes; just as something crunchy to chew.
On the other hand, in his younger days, his favorite toys were old milk jugs (a human holds the handle, and he tugs until it tears). And as soon as he got a big enough hole in it, he would always stick his snout in to eviscerate it. His instincts apparently didn’t care that milk jugs don’t have viscera.
Ruby is capable of destroying a Kong toy. I only get them cheap, on sale critters they can have they’re way with. I squeak it for them, they go nuts and dig in. Ruby specifically goes for the squeaker. She won’t stop until she’s pulled it out.
My poor polly dog (rip) loved to eat the eyes first. Then the brains. Then there were stuffed animal brains all over the house.
When I first met my gf she had a twenty year old neutered male cat with an adrenal tumor that produced male hormones. We’d be sitting in the living room and he would mount and furiously fuck the dogs’ stuffed animals. It was equal parts awkward and funny.
This went on for a couple of months, then one morning he didn’t wake up. The dogs were not unhappy in the least.
I agree with this. My dog loved chewing on things that crunched. The ends of asparagus spears were one of the best things ever. Practically had her snout right near the cutting board—Weimaraners can be fairly tall, even without standing on their hand legs—lest I forget to give them to her.
All squeakers had to die too. Same, almost surgical, precision in ripping them out of stuffed animals that many of you mentioned. The ‘Ruffians’ line of rubber dog toys resisted all of her attempts though. Not that it prevented her from chewing the hell out of it until you were about to go mad from the sound. Got to finish the job, you see.
The Lab, by contrast, loved carrying around a stuffed duck, which she would periodically gently squeeze to hear a honk-like Quack! from the toy’s squeaker. As she heard it, her tail would wag furiously. I regret not being able to take her duck hunting. I think she’d have been fantastic at it—she swam like a fish and loved retrieving—and would have had ‘the best day ever!’
I got my black lab chewy animal toys, but he prefers my shoes, the little shit…