# Yard Toys



## hecallsmebama (Mar 31, 2016)

Amos has been enjoying the freedoms of his underground fence since November. We've tried to increase his independence by allowing him time to play on his on without supervision. This has felt much how I imagine giving your car to your teen after they get their license. There have been a few mishaps (two utility lines have been dug up) and a couple of casualties (poor cedar bushes!), but overall he's making progress. I know it's alot of responsibility, but he's making better choices each and every day and we still check on him every ten to fifteen minutes.

However, I feel that the destruction happens when he is bored. He desperately loves sticks, but we try to remove those from the yard because he tends to chew on them (mostly spits them out, but if we aren't out there with him I don't like the risk). This is why he likes to rip the bushes apart....to create sticks. Or another favorite, dig up tree roots (or the cable line)....free the buried stick! Anyway, I just ordered a west paw hurley bone to try out as a "yard toy" but I was really hoping for something that looked like a stick but was safe like a kong. Everything I found seemed to be for light to moderate chewers. Amos would be an aggressive chewer. Rope bones are a pile of lent in within hours. The hurley bone was the closest I could come up with.

So my question is this, what "yard toys" live at your houses?


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

Other than soccer balls (they don't last long), mine drag inside toys outside. Outside mine like squirrel chasing, digging, and finding a sunny spot to lay in?


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## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

This petstages toy was purchased for my sister's dog and forgotten at my parent's house where Scout discovered it. It contains wood and looks like a stick. They have been able to gnaw away at it like with a nylabone.
I also just found this rubber stick toy. 

I believe at least on person on the forum made a sand pit for their dog to dig in.

Most of our outdoor toys are interactive ones as Scout doesn't usually like to be left alone.


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

einspänner said:


> This petstages toy was purchased for my sister's dog and forgotten at my parent's house where Scout discovered it. It contains wood and looks like a stick. They have been able to gnaw away at it like with a nylabone.
> I also just found this rubber stick toy.
> 
> I believe at least on person on the forum made a sand pit for their dog to dig in.
> ...


Haha Ein, your right.
Mine like me to be outside with them. If I leave the back door open, they are more likely to stay outside without me for a little while. But it normally means they are up to no good.


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

I have seen this, but I bet a vizsla could still destroy it.
Cash is prone to being hard mouthed, so I don't buy toys that encourage it. If you don't hunt them, then I don't see it as being a problem. 
https://tethertug.com/product/tether-tug-xl/


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## hecallsmebama (Mar 31, 2016)

Thanks for the links and suggestions. The first link you sent, ein, of the stick-looking stick toy sounds great! And the tether looks interesting too, TR.

Amos loves his frisbee time and he gets a run or two with me each week. Plays with the kids after school. But for a while, he was being all crazy rowdy at like 8:30pm...right about the time the hubby and I have the kids in bed and the kitchen straightened and are looking to chill out in the couch. That's when Amos would go WWF on our feet. Schedule-wise, adding in more interactive time with me outside was not an option. So, I was trying to let him play more outside, by himself. Maybe burn off some of that energy.

He's fairly entertained by the dogs across the street who also have an underground fence. He runs back and forth across the yard like he's begging them to break their fence and come play. And he can usually find some lawn care crew to watch....but his true passion is sticks. We think he could qualify as a black belt in stick wrestling. We thought he had caught an armadillo one night on a potty trip. After venturing out in the dark to attempt to get him away from it, we realized all the snorting and growling and ferociousness was directed at, yes, a stick. Crazy dog.


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## harrigab (Aug 21, 2011)

before we got Elvis, this was Ruby's "back garden" toy haha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSetXq2JrJc


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## MCD (May 4, 2013)

A Chuck It Kick It Ball(foot ball or soccer ball size), and this green alien thing are Dharma's fave. She likes to lay in the shade of the gazeebo when it is hot. If it is not so warm we can often find Dharma laying on the fieldstone pathway soaking up the warmth. Other natural distractions are squirrels or birds or the occasional frog that has stopped to check out our little pond. Dharma likes to run and consequently tears up the grass. Other than that she is not destructive.


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## hecallsmebama (Mar 31, 2016)

This was one of the utility lines he dug up. The dog will do anything for stick. It's even how we potty trained him. After he'd go potty, he would get to pick out a stick. He would bring it in and we'd put it in a pile on the entry cabinet. They'd get tossed back in the yard after he was asleep.


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## MCD (May 4, 2013)

That looks like what Dharma did twice when the cable company failed to properly bury our cable line from the house to our neighbours yard behind us. But OH it wasn't the dog's fault though- they left loops of cable visible and didn't bury it deep enough. They then had the nerve to charge me for having to repair it twice and wondered why I didn't have working services which I still got charged for any way. End of rant and you know whose side of that argument I took...... Always Dharma's!


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## NutterButter (Mar 5, 2016)

These are some of Sadie's Indoor and Outdoor toys. When we are gone (and only then) we also give her a rawhide bone to occupy her.


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