05/30/2026
I hear this almost every day -
“I buy him so many toys - and all he does is destroy them!”
My response? “And?”
Imagine if I said to you “I buy them such good dog food, and all they do is EAT it!”
It’s the SAME THING.
Dogs are not children. They don’t play with toys the way they do. They are different species and therefore have different needs. They don’t put their toys on shelves and wait to play with them again tomorrow.
Shredding, dissecting, chewing, biting, gnawing, shaking, are all part of behavior diversity in toy play that encourages and gives WELFARE to dogs.
They do not give a hoot or know how much it cost. Or how cute it is. They need to do these behaviors and dog toys are how you prevent them (hopefully) from doing it to your other stuff - that again, dogs understand value of. The dog toy industry has increasingly created toys that are not only expensive but also hold sentimental value to us (coffee cup stuffies or favorite cartoon characters etc) and therefore we are always intervening the destruction process. That needs to stop.
You buy the toys. They destroy them, however they choose. That’s all lumped into the cost of living with another species. They NEED to do these behaviors and suppressing them only causes more problems elsewhere.
Kipper is a shredder and tearer. More than most of my dogs combined. So, I go to goodwill and buy stuffed toys in bulk. He shreds and dissects them, i sit and watch and I throw them away and give him another. I supervise so he doesn’t ingest them, and when I can’t I give him something else like an antler. Does it cost money? Yes. But that is all part of the deal I made when deciding to accept the responsibility of having dogs in my house.
To answer a typical rebuttal I hear "if I let them do that then they will do it to other things, including the ACTUAL kids toys. I hear the same with "if I give my dog people food for treats, he will beg at the table"
I have the opposite experience and many clients do too. By giving the toys I've bought in the context I do, I've had my dogs steal less of the kids toys, and actually WAIT until they are given their "okay to shred" toys. Context can and does absolutely matter to many dogs. The majority of stuffed dog toys today resemble kids toys anyway, so Goodwill toys provide a much cheaper outlet without the feeling of throwing away money for 5 minutes of joy. Cardboard boxes, iceberg lettuce, watermelons etc are all great shredding options too, but they don't replace the true joy for many dogs of ripping an ear off a stuffy.
They eat the food, they shred the toys, they dig the holes, they shed, they bark, they need management, they need training, they need medical care. None of this is their fault. They are dogs. If we look at meeting their basic needs as an inconvenience, then we are already doing them an injustice before we’ve even begun to understand them fully.
Here’s kipper destroying his 3rd squish mallow of the week. Thank god for goodwill.
- Helen St. Pierre
