Trixie Is Not Allowed To Read This!

Hi everyone! Its me, Sammy-Joe, with a quick question for all my friends who are dogs!

But first, a story.

Today Mama was cleaning her room, and she found an unopened Zhu-Zhu pet from a few Christmases ago. Mama used to have another blog about taking care of kids, and someone sent her a whole box of Zhu Zhu pets to review. She gave most of them to her little cousins for Christmas that year but there was one left over, and when Mama found it she thought I would like it! Because it is kind of like a mouse. And I am kind of like a cat.

Well, it was interesting enough. I stayed in my box and watched it carefully. It kind of freaked me out, to tell you the truth. I am smart enough to know it didn't smell like a living animal of any kind, so I didn't bother to chase it.
So then Mama took it upstairs to show Gramma, because she was amused that it kept making farting noises. She put it on the kitchen floor. And guess who went crazy for it? Trixie! She kept running up to it, picking it up, and throwing it! She was really happy and excited! Unfortunately it only took Trixie about two minutes to break the ZhuZhu pet. Now it just makes noise but doesn't move. I think Trixie feels guilty because every time she sees it now she gets up and walks away with her head down!

Mama had an idea. She wanted to find a more durable toy... maybe even a toy actually meant for dogs... that makes noise and moves around by itself! Trixie usually just gets bones or stuffies for Christmas, but if Mama could get her something she'd really play with, it would be awesome!

My question is, do you know of any toys like this? The only ones we could find on the Internet were the Zany Ball, the Bumble Ball, and the Weazel Ball.

If anyone has any of these toys, or knows of any others that are similar to Zhu Zhu pets but not so breakable, let us know so Mama can order them for Trixie!

Thanks friends!!! And whatever you do, don't tell Trixie what we're doing. In fact, don't tell Lily either. That dog cannot keep a secret!

Love, Sammy-Joe

Me And My Favorite Toy

Hi everyone! Its me, Lily, and I wanna be the star of the show today! I think I've mentioned before that my very favorite toy is Kong Air Dog Squeakair Balls.shake it! Mama took this video of me playing with my ball. You can tell in the video that I catch it in my mouth a few times. I also shake it vigorously. When the video gets blurry, thats because I'm shake-shake-shaking it! I also throw it to Mama a few times. She says I have a great throwing mouth! I could be on a baseball team, just like Snoopy!  (They look different on the website. Mama gets mine from Target, and they are all different colors!) I get so excited when I am going to get  a new ball! The first thing I do is chase it and bounce it a little, but then I must de-squeak it. Its a difficult operation that takes great fine motor skills. After de-squeaking it, I love to nibble it, throw it, catch it, chase it, and

Please realize, Mama's video taking skills aren't great! I think next time I might be better off handing the camera to Sammy-Joe! (Uh, don't tell Mama I said that!) Its a little dark and shaky... but its still great because its me!  

If you can't see the video on this page, you can also check it out here.

By the way, Trixie is going to the vet tomorrow to find out why she had a seizure. We will let you know, as soon as we can, whats going on with her. 

I gotta go now! Trixie and Sammy-Joe say Hi! I love you, friends!

Love, 

Lily

Two KONG Toys!

We have another prize donation for you! Our friend Sandra, our friend from KONG, has sent us two toys to raffle off. 
The first one is a classic KONG toy, which dispenses treats as your dog plays with it. 

The second toy is a Wobbler! It looks like a giant KONG. But instead of being held and chewed on by dogs, it stands up right and wobbles like a Weeble! Like the classic KONG, it dispenses treats when your dog paws at it or  noses it. 

If you spend your raffle ticket here, you can win one of each! 

And if you'd like to learn more about KONG, you can visit their website, "like" them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter. 

Ready to get some raffle tickets? Each $1.00 that you donate to Apollo, using our ChipIn widget, will equal one raffle ticket. For instance, if you donate ten dollars, you could choose ten chances to win one particular prize, or one chance each for ten different prizes, or two chances each for five different prizes, etc. Here's the ChipIn! (If the widget isn't working, you can visit Apollo's Chipin page here. 

Lots Of Toys from Kyjen!

We have made so many great new friends during this blogathon! Our newest friend, Lauren from Kyjen sent us a big box of doggie toys! We got to try out a few of them, and the rest were for us to raffle off to you.


Want to see the things we got to try?
First there was this Hide-A Squirrel Puzzle Plush. Your human is supposed to hide the little squeaky squirrels inside the tree trunk. Then you are supposed to figure out how to get the squirrels out!

Lily loved playing with this toy! The directions said that Mama should rub the squirrels on herself to get them to smell like her, but Mama didn't even have to do that. All Lily had to know was that something in there squeaked! Lily dragged the tree around and worked at getting the squirrels out. Finally she realized that if she picked up the trunk and shook it crazily, the squirrel would come flying out! (Mama tried to take pictures of this, but they came out all blurry because of course Lily never stops moving.) Lily was so proud when she finally got those squirrels! 

The next thing we played with was the Real Animal Squeaker Mat! 

Boy, was it big! It was longer than Lily! 

And it had so many squeakers in it. It had at a whole bunch of squeakers in the body, and a really loud, funny sounding squeaker in the tail! 

We both loved playing with it. And, in fact, it was so big, we could both play with it at the same time!

Finally, Mama gave us a toy that would enhance our brains. She gave us a Paw Hide Dog Puzzle! 

The way it works is, Mama takes the cups out, puts treats in them, and then puts them back. We have to try to figure out how to pick up the cups to get the treats out!

We had a lot of trouble with this. We are just spoiled dogs who are used to having Mama help us. After a few minutes of sniffing like crazy at the toy, we just laid down and stared at Mama.

So, she tried something else. She replaced the cups upside down, so they'd be easier for us to knock out of the puzzle. This gave us a better idea of what we were supposed to do! After a few tries of doing it that way, we were ready to try it the right way again. Did you ever think a dog could play with a puzzle?

Now, we are raffling off each of these three toys... plus, a whole bunch of extra toys! Check out the raffle packages, so you know what to look for on the list on March 13 through 15. 

Kyjen Hide-A-Squirrel Package: Comes with 1 Hide-A-Squirrel Puzzle Plush, plus a Real Animal Squirrel Squeaker Mat, plus a Bottle Buddy Pig. 

Paw Hide Puzzle Packages: Comes with 1 Paw Hide Puzzle, plus a 6-squeak Invincible toy, plus a Squeaky Squiggler Sea Monster. 

Finally, the Real Animal Fox Package: Comes with 1 Real Animal Fox Squeaker Mat, plus a Hard Boiled Softie Penguin. 

Those are going to be three really lucky raffle winners! (Our Mama had to hide all of those extra toys from us because we get all excited when we see toys, and we start crying and whining when we realize she's not giving them to us!!!) 

Ready to get some raffle tickets? Each $1.00 that you donate to Apollo, using our ChipIn widget, will equal one raffle ticket. For instance, if you donate ten dollars, you could choose ten chances to win one particular prize, or one chance each for ten different prizes, or two chances each for five different prizes, etc. Here's the ChipIn! (You can start choosing where to spend your tickets on March 13 - March 15.)

To learn more about Kyjen, you can visit their website, "Like" them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter. 

Premier Pet Toys!

Hi everyone! Remember back in January, when Premier Pet Products partnered with us on our very first giveaway? They sent us a Pogo Plush Bunny! (Which, by the way, is still alive and bouncing, and is the only toy Lily hasn't managed to get the squeaker out of, despite her valiant attempts at it!) 

Well, our friend Mary Beth from Premier has come through for us again! She offered up another Pogo Plush toy as part of our raffle! Spend a ticket on this giveaway, and you can win one of these Pogo Plush toys! The animal shaped ones are a bunny, a beaver and a raccoon. They also have a ball, a Frizzle (which is like a frizzy ball) and a Slap Happy! 

These toys are pretty much indestructable, and a lot of fun. We still really love our bunny and play with it all the time! 

Mary Beth has also offered a Busy Buddy, which is a toy that dispenses treats as you play with it. Its a toy that stimulates our brains by causing us to have to figure out how to get the treats out! 

We are going to raffle these off as two separate items, so that more pets can win. So, when it comes time to spend your raffle tickets, look for these two items on the list: "Premier Pogo Plush" and "Premier Busy Buddy." 

Ready to get some raffle tickets? Each $1.00 that you donate to Apollo, using our ChipIn widget, will equal one raffle ticket. For instance, if you donate ten dollars, you could choose ten chances to win one particular prize, or one chance each for ten different prizes, or two chances each for five different prizes, etc. Here's the ChipIn! (You can start choosing where to spend your tickets on March 13 - March 15.)


Want to learn more about Premier Pets? Visit their website, "like" them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter!

Penn-Plax Dog Toys

Hi everyone! This is the last raffle item of today, and its a good one! Penn-Plaxx Pet Products donated a bunch of different toys for us to review and raffle off to you... including two dog toys!


Mama was really happy about the treat balls. Last week Sammy-Joe wrote a post about keeping your pets smart and preventing cognitive dysfunction as we get older, and one of the tips he wrote about was to give us puzzle toys that make us use our brains! Treat balls are a great way to make us work for our treats. If we have to try to figure out a way to get treats out of a ball, instead of just being handed a treat, it stimulates our minds!
Our Mama gave us the treat balls first. She took some pictures so we could show you how these treat balls work, from start to finish!


1. Dial the mouth open to the widest position!

2. Put some small treats into the mouth of the treat ball.

3. Dial the mouth of the treat ball back to as small of a closure as you want. Our Mama actually opened it up a little wider after this, so that the treats would fall out more easily as we got the hang of it.

Trixie loved the treat ball most of all! She figured out how to get the treats out right away. Lily spent a lot of time crying, "Mama! I need help!" And then Trixie tried to lend a hand (or tongue) but ended up eating Lily's treats in the process!

Next, Mama gave us the squeaky toys! These are a little bit like stuffies, but not as furry. They are made out of durable canvas, and are shaped like elephants, dogs and kitties. We were really excited about them because we love stuffies... and because these are made out of tough material, Lily hasn't been able to eat the squeakers out yet!
The reason our Mama took pictures of us while she was still holding the toys was because, when we play with them (especially Lily) we like to shake them. Mama took pictures of us playing with the squeakies, and they turned out as just big blurs! The only way she could get a nice, sitting-still picture was to hold the toys up for us to gaze longingly at.

Finally she did get a nice picture of me nibbling on a squeaky kitty!

Bookmark this blog entry as something you want to spend one of your raffle tickets on, because TEN winners can win a doggie bag with one treat ball and one stuffie! This package will be listed as "Penn-Plax Doggie Bag". Remember, on March 13, you can start tossing in your raffle tickets!


Want to buy tickets now? Here's our ChipIn widget! Even if you don't have a PayPal account, you can pay with your debit or credit card. Just click on the ChipIn, then look right beneath the PayPal login button.



Want to know more about Penn-Plax Pet Products? Visit their website or friend them on Facebook! 

Check back here bright and early tomorrow morning for the next raffle item!