When we brought our bulldog home last winter, we expected her to want to sink her jaws into hard core chew toys. We bought her a few toys for super chewers that she hardly touched. This month, she picked out a stuffed softie at the pet store and demolished it within 48 hours. We learned that she loves to rip soft toys to shreds. Since I can't drop $5 every time Dede needs to chew, I made this dog toy for her.
I have lots and lots of knit fabric scraps. If you've followed my blog for a while, you may notice polka dot swimsuit fabric, aqua and white striped t-shirt fabric, and some scraps cut off a pair of sweats that were too long. I cut strips 8-12" long (not caring if they were uniform in the slightest) and knotted them together. I wanted it to make a sort of ball shape but now that she's had it for a couple weeks it's more of a long strand of knots.
Dede loves to sit and gnaw on her toy, and occasionally my husband will throw it across the room and she'll fetch it and bring it back to her pillow. (Yes, she has a pillow instead of a dog bed because last week she opened the zipper on her dog bed and unstuffed the fluff. Naughty dog!)
As you can see, this toy is great for dogs who love to TEAR things to shreds. I can always tie the strands back together that she's pulled loose. She doesn't break the strands off because they are knit and they stretch.
This is the perfect toy for my dog! I'm confident I have a large enough collection of fabric scraps to keep her busy for a long time.