At our home we have a trash bag full of old toys. They were once new and fun and worth their weight in gold. Each could easily buy me 30 minutes of alone time when I wanted to get some work done. The dogs not wanting yet to risk that I might put it away, they would go off and squeak intently in another room. As time passed these beautiful, fun, squeaky, silly looking stuffed toys became boring. Dogs no longer grabbing them and running around squeaking with glee. My hard earned money no longer valuable in the form of a toy. So around the house I went collecting each in a great big trash bag with all the furry brows wrinkling up and the soft eyes glaring as if to say, “DON’T YOU DARE THROW THOSE AWAY.”
I did not intend to throw them away, but needed these spoiled little furry family members to learn… these toys are still FUN! So…
I got out a much smaller toy box and filled it with a few brand new toys…
But soon they got old and lay around just like the others did in the far off corners and hidden areas of the home…
And so I sneakily, picked up all the forgotten toys and even the one left in the toy box from last night’s pick up…
Went back to the trash bag full of toys…
Grabbed several old toys and placed them in the toy box… and then…
This went on for several minutes until one decided it was time to show me their “new” toy…
The moral of the story is this…
To enrich your dog’s life, you don’t need to buy new toys all the time. Just change them out often. I personally like to rotate the toys about every three or four days. We have a lot of toys. I put a new one in the bunch every couple of weeks to a month. Just like us, dogs need variety. Could you imagine watching the same episode of a show over and over again?