Devoured

We learned early on that Lola had an urge to chew. Thankfully it was only her toys and bones rather than our furniture, shoes and clothes. But what we didn't realize was that we would have to have a toy graveyard for my numerous attempts to buy her something cute and cuddly. For example- these toys would last approximately 2.5 minutes with Lola before their innards were soon out. No offense Martha, your toys are adorable...but you might want to stick to crafts and desserts.

See, cute and cuddly works with a retriever/lab mix when they are very very young. When the toy is roughly the size of them.

But when she morphed into a young lady pup (yes that's the technical term) and is now roughly 70 lbs., cute and cuddly doesn't work so well. So Ryan and I figured out that we buy only 3 types of toys from now on.

1. Nylabones - these she can chew and chew and she will never devour them. They are fantastic!

2. Rope Toys - we learned the hard way that she likes to pull off the ends of the rope and scatter them around the house. We now cut off the ends and let her have fun with the rest of it.

And 3. Tennis Balls - my dad recently gave us a dozen old tennis balls and Lola is in love. We keep a few "outside balls" and a few "inside balls" so that way the dirt and mud don't come into the house. Her new favorite word- FETCH! If you whisper the word, she'll grab a tennis ball and run.

Sometimes we have to retire a rope toy, when she's been working on it for a while. As you can see- she found a loose end on this one.

To the dog parents out there, are there any other quality tough toys you would recommend? We've tried the "rough and tough" labeled rubber toys, but she still seems to rip those into shreds. Oh well, at least the girl knows what she likes- tennis balls, ropes and Nylabones!