I have never seen my dog so animated over a toy

I'm so glad you guys could visualize my dog's joy/terror over this ladybug and share in some of the fun that I had watching him last night! I finally put it up at bedtime so that he would settle down. I have another Tuesday Morning store only a mile or so from my house, so I'm going to swing by today and see if they have another one of these toys. He is has a few very small stuffed animals that he adores and doesn't try to remove the stuffing from, but I don't know if this ladybug will be like those or if he will try to take the stuffing out like he does on his bigger stuffed toys. It is worth having a backup, or better yet, a different stuffed bug style.

I also picked up the most adorable little brown tweed vest and a black knitted neck scarf with white tassel balls on the ends. He is so patient with any clothing I put on him and will wear it without trying to take it off. The neck scarf looked as cute as can be on him!

Thanks for sharing in my laughter over this and not making me feel like a crazy dog lady.

That is so sweet.  I love that he got out of bed to play in the night.  You should take a look in the cat toy section of the pet store.  There are quite a few toys that dogs seem to go for.  Things that are not offered in the dog toy department.  When I first rescued my dog, I didn't have any dog toys yet, but I had a basket full of cat toys accumulated over the years.  The dog discovered this basket and began claiming some things for himself.

A lot of my dog's favorite toys started out as cat's toys.  There are only a handful that I can put in his basket downstairs that he can take out anytime. The rest have to be monitored because they have parts that could be broken into sharp bits if he were to chew on them.  He never has, but I make sure to keep those in a drawer away from him until I have the time to sit down and monitor him.  

My cats are older now, but they still like to play like kittens with some toys.  Mainly things that I have to participate in, like strings, wands, or feathers, as well as the battery-operated kind of toy from the  tiny crawling bugs to bigger toys that have a moving component.  A group favorite is a motorized unit about 8 inches around with a circular vinyl-like sheet all around the base.  There is an arm that runs along underneath the sheet controlled by speed settings that advance from slow moving to hyper speed, and one that varies the speeds itself.  Only about an inch of the attachment pops out from underneath the sheet intermittently to taunt them.  You can change out the end attachment to keep them interested.  

There is a feathery tail that is pretty popular with them.  I have to make sure I am either holding the dog or  keep him out of the bedroom when they play with it because he wants to play too.  It isn't that I mind him playing with it so much as the fact that he basically takes it over from the cats and the point of these toys is to entertain the cats and keep them active. 

Feathers are always popular with my cats. My sister has peacocks and chickens on her property and had collected lots of feathers for me to keep my cats well supplied. She would use the perfect "eye" peacock feathers for her crafts, and I would get the "ugly" ones that don't have the eye, or have the eye but are damaged in some way. I have no need for the pretty ones since my cats will have them in shreds within a few minutes. With the small feathers from the chickens, I glue them into bundles to make replacements myself for their toys. And of course, the dog loves a long peacock feather too.

Their second favorite toy is a simple thing that you hang on a doorknob, hooking the bottom of it under the door.  It is just a piece of elastic material that hooks onto the doorknob and stretches to hook to the floor piece.  A battery motor makes the elastic spin in a circle.  When a length of string is sewn to the elastic, it turns into a lively game of catch the string before it disappears up the backside of the toy.  Again, I can't run that toy with the dog in the room.

He doesn't hurt the cats at all, but he also doesn't respect their boundaries.  He's like the big kid on the playground that sees a group of children taking turns and playing nicely with a ball and he charges over and intrudes on their play, grabbing the ball away and playing too rough, scaring them off.  The cats will be pissed and hiss at him, sometimes take a swipe at him, but he doesn't seem to notice.  The cats and dog will all sleep cuddled up at night, but the dog is not a welcome member of the group during the day.

The final cat favorite is a 12-inch square wooden box, about 3 inches tall, with evenly spaced holes all over the top and along the sides of it.  The holes are just big enough to put a paw into.  I can insert one of those hard plastic, battery-operated crawling toys, a ball, or even just hard treats into this thing and the cats have to stick their paws in from the various holes to try to capture the items inside.  The dog doesn't have the dexterity for that toy, so he leaves them to it.  It is the most entertaining to me when I sprinkle kitty treats or fresh catnip leaves inside.  They all want to grab the items at once, but it isn't big enough and usually no more than two can get in there at a time.  Its funny to see them capturing a treat and running off to eat it, losing their place to the cat that has been waiting patiently for their turn.

Hmm, I sure write a lot about pet toys.  I guess I am a crazy pet lady.  Living alone as I do, they are a major source of companionship and entertainment for me.  Oh well. It could be worse.