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A household with pets has a stash of toys — ropes, balls, stuffed animals, chew toys, puzzles, treat dispensers, squeaky toys, and so on. Online and offline, pet parents discuss the newest toy in the market and how much it’s a hit with their pets. Currently, ‘talking buttons’ and ‘flopping fish’ seem to be trending. Aisles of pet shops are filled with toys of all kinds, shapes, sizes, smells, and colours for every pet, including dogs, cats, fish, birds, rodents, and even reptiles. Just a few years ago, pet toys, except the humble ball, were unheard of. Today, pet parents can’t resist the urge to bring home the newest, only to see it shredded into bits in days (maybe, months at most). But hey, who cares as long as our fur kids are having a blast?
Pippi too has his basket of toys, most of which lie there untouched. He plays with just two of them — a spiked ball and a plush soft toy. When we were in Bengaluru, coconuts from the trees and a squeaking hedgehog were his favourites. His first tryst with a toy was a cracked rubber ball that neighbourhood kids gave him when was a streetie. He would bring it home occasionally and chew on it for a while and go into a slumber. In the evening, when the kids came to play fetch with him, Pippi would go bonkers with the ball, jumping, barking, nipping, and chasing anything that moved. Soon, I learnt why.
Toys can be stressful too
Playing fetch simulates a dog’s (or a cat’s) chase after a prey and results in its brain releasing the ‘fight-or-flight’ hormone adrenaline. In the wild, animals chase their prey only a few times; mostly when they are hungry. So, some amount of adrenaline is needed to keep them fed. But, when we repeatedly throw a ball, multiple times a day, we open floodgates of adrenaline in their brains without giving them the time to calm down. Imagine running a marathon every single day! High levels of adrenaline release the stress hormone cortisol, causing turmoil in the brain and inducing stress. The fun of chasing a ball soon turns into an obsession.
Add to that the havoc slippery, smooth floors of our houses cause on the pets’ joints. Even when they walk, they don’t get the necessary traction and often slip. But when they run, they risk a fall or tearing their ligaments. For an old dog or cat, who may be arthritic, running on smooth floors is painful and disastrous. But the adrenaline rush keeps them going.
Chew toys come a close second after balls in what pet stores sell. From bacon-flavoured plastic bones to teeth-cleaning rubber puzzle toys, choosing a simple-yet-safe chew toy that isn’t a choking hazard is overwhelming. Chewing is a calming activity for dogs that releases happy hormones and helps calm them down. Dogs with anxiety turn to chewing to cope with a stressful situation, digging into furniture, clothes, or shoes. But the amount of polyester stuffing or chemical-ridden plastic and rubber these toys have is often unregulated and is quite scary. Over time, we have come to question if these ‘toys’ are meeting any of Pippi’s needs and we have figured out there are better ways to have fun that don't dig a hole in our pockets.
Half the toys, double the fun
Pippi has a high prey drive. So, playing fetch was intoxicating and we stopped it once we realised that. Today, although he loves the spiked ball he ‘stole’ from the park, he prefers a game of ‘hide-and-seek’ with it. When indoors, we hide it and he loves looking for the ball. When it snows, he takes it along on his walks, buries the ball in the snow, and later digs it up at his own pace without the frenzy. This game not only tires him out mentally but also puts his nose and eyes to good work.
We repent buying all the expensive ‘chew toys’ for Pippi, who is a heavy chewer because either they don’t last or the hard rubber in them fails to enthuse him to chew. So many of these are gathering dust. On his part, he is content with the stuffed dog he scavenged from the apartment’s bin, whose polyester filling has been promptly replaced with old socks and pieces of cut fabric. But most of his chewing sessions are with raw, meaty bones —they are healthy, natural, and also clean his teeth!
The good part about having dogs is they don’t love a toy looking at its price tag! So we are all for doing the Indian jugaad with the cheapest stuff lying around. We do a treasure hunt with empty cardboard boxes, hide a ball inside a pile of clothes as a snuffle mat, turn a plastic bottle into a treat dispenser and use toilet rolls to make a puzzle. The mess at the end is for us to clean up but watching him tire out at the end is our highlight of the day. Oh, coming up with innovative puzzles keeps our brain exercised too!
Tailspin is your monthly column on everything that’s heartwarming and annoying about pet parenting.
The writer is a science communicator and mom to Pippi, a five-year-old rescued Indie, who is behind her drive to understand dogs better. She tweets @RamanSpoorthy