DIY- Dog toys!

Most of you have previously made the acquaintance of my youngest dog, Pickle. Pickle is a fabric connoisseur. You name it, she eats it. Our couch, socks, rugs, dog toys, blankets, towels, pet beds, curtains; they have all been consumed by the Pickle. We go through dog toys like Sherman marched through Georgia (very quickly and destroying everything in our wake for you non-Southerners). A few weeks ago, I decided that I needed to do something before Pickle chewed us out of house and home.

The Pickle in the dirty snow

I bought 1/2 yard of clearance fleece at JoAnn's fabrics for $2.00. I bought cute little doggies, but save yourself the money because when you are done you can't really tell what is printed on the fabric anyway. Buy the solid colors, they are cheaper.

Use scissors or a rotary cutter and cut 2" strips. I folded the fabric in half short ways so that I would cut through several layers but still have long strips to work with. Does that make sense? I cut out (6) 2" strips.

Gather your six strips and tie them all together in a knot at one end. Go ahead and tie it a few times. In my experience my dogs have teeth like razor blades and can untie anything. The bigger the knot, the longer the razor blade teeth take to cut.

Gather the fleece strips into 3 sections of 2 strands each and braid the whole thing. When you have braided the entire strand, tie a knot in the end.

I then tie a knot in the middle of the strand then tie two more knots, each knot in between the middle and the ends of the strand.

Your final result is very long, very durable rope toy.

These toys usually cost at least $10 at pet stores. You often see string toys for sale in pet stores and I used to buy them until my vet told me how bad they are for dogs. The strings ball up in your pet's stomach and they can't pass it so they have too have surgery to remove the ball of string. Fleece doesn't have the same stringy effect so it is much safer. For safety's sake I will say that I only let me dogs chew on toys when I am around to supervise. They are much to precious to have anything happen to them! My dogs love these toys and I love the fact that they only cost me about $2 to make!