Keep Clutter at Bay with a Dog Toy Rotation

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Like a lot of dogs, Felix is involved in a passionate love affair with his toys.

Considering that he didn’t know how to play with toys when we adopted him, I’ve always found his genuine delight in his favourite stuffies incredibly endearing. I’m always on the look out for things that might thrill Felix and when I see one, whether it’s a super soft little toy or a giant stuffed dog, I just have to get it for him. Fe rarely destroys a toy, he just makes them crusty and spitty and gross. The don’t get wrecked though, which means that over the years, he’s accumulated quite the collection. In the old house, his favourite place to keep his toys was under the kitchen table. Here is the apartment, his toys have no designated “spot”. No, no, these days he prefers to keep his collection scattered all over our apartment.

As much as I love Felix and how happy his toys make him, I’m not cool with them being all over the place.

Do you recognize this yak? Reward offered to anyone who can find me a new, less dirty, much less stinky version.

After all, exactly how many toys does a dog need? He can fit like one, maybe two, toys in his mouth at one time? If he tries, he can maybe lay on two or three more? If I was a stronger human, I might be able to purge the whole lot, save only the cherished few, like dirty, stinky yak and get rid of the rest. After all, there really is a shameful amount of toys in our house. We can’t possibly need them all, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Felix loves them. I love Felix. And so, the toys stay stay.

In order to make us both happy, we’ve started a dog toy rotation.

Have you ever gotten fed up and started gathering up toys to throw away or donate, only to find that all of a sudden toys that have been long neglected are being grabbed and played with? Like humans, dogs can be over whelmed by too many choices and get bored with toys they’ve had a long time.

To solve this problem and keep the house looking tidy, I gathered up all but a few of Felix’s toys. The rest were tucked away into our DIY Designer Toy Box (Well, most of them were. A few were boxed up in the craft room, but I’ve got my eye on this awesome bucket-turn-storage-ottoman that I’m dying to try my hand at.) Every few days, I gather up the toys and replace them with three different ones. Felix has a never ending supply of “new” toys and I have my uncluttered room.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that Felix enjoys his toys even more now. 

It seems like each day he is delighted with the new selection of toys. He plays with them more and his play is more jubilant and full of shenanigans. There are a couple staples that will hopefully never go away, like that awful dirty, stinky yak, but it seems that, at least when it comes to dog toys, less is more.

 Do you rotate your dogs toys? Do they treats their “old friends” as new again each time you bring them out?