Wednesday 4 November 2009

trying out a 'fun-for-dogs' toy

Here we are, trying our own version of one of the toys from 'fun-with-dogs', the German site devoted to enhancing human-canine interaction. (If you click on the British flag you will get the main page in English.)



And I'm just gob-smacked by the wonderful games on the page devoted to a competition to find the most creative toy. You don't need to read German, because the photos speak for themselves.

I think I love the last one on the page best of all. An old hand-puppet has become a friend that only opens his mouth to reveal a wonderful treat when the dog offers an interesting behaviour. The reward is for creativity, for thinking up - and offering - a new behaviour.

11 comments:

i said...

Aaw just look at Penny! She's so eager to play with her new toy! And she's very smart too! LS says she's going to try that with me. Hmm...

Slavenka said...

Parlance,it was an excellent video. I needed a little laugh.Thanks :)

Molly the Airedale said...

It looks like you are just loving your new toy! Your mom is so smart, Penny!

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

parlance said...

Slavenka, I love reading blogs that make me smile. That's why I like your blog! I love your jokes. (And I like your animal stories, of course.)

parlance said...

Happy, remind LS to look at all the fabulous toys on the fun-with-dogs site. They are inspiring, and most of them don't cot anything to make.

parlance said...

Yep, she's loving it alright, Maggie and Mitch. She loves anything to do with food or tennis balls, lol.

Johann The Dog said...

Fantastic!!! Thank you so much for sharing this. Hope you don't mind if we pass your post with a link along...so great! We are gonna try it...just have to rustle up a plastic bottle.

parlance said...

Johann, you're most welcome to pass it along. I've had so many great ideas from your site!

Unknown said...

Hee! Hee! Love Penny's enthusisam. Don't know if this one will be beyond Honey's 3 brain cells but might save one of our plastic bottles to give it a try!! :-)

Thanks so much for sharing about the site - must go check out the other toys when I have a moment!

Hsin-Yi

Unknown said...

Oh my God - just went to have a look at the list of creative toys - wonderful ideas but seriously, for a lot of them, you would really need to have a dog with more than 3 brain cells!! I think I could only see about 3 toys Honey would "understand" and be able to master - everythign else would just go 'whooosh' over her head and she'd just stare at it and then lie down and have a nap! :-)

Hsin-Yi

parlance said...

Hsin-Yi, one thing I find about the toys is that it takes a while to make them and the dog plays with them only for a couple of minutes. (Reminds me of my entire career as a primary school teacher, lol.)

But to me it's worth it, because the dogs take the learning from one game to another.

And I think Honey is one of the smartest dogs I've seen on the internet!!