How to Make Your Dog a Chew Ring Toy From Old Pajamas

[caption id="attachment_2637" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="Cuckoo: Can I keep both?"][/caption]

Today is not such a good day for me both physically and mentally. Mentally I'm just tired and physically I'm in a lot of pain. Got a heat boil on my butt thanks to the heat this week and almost every movement causes pain, especially sitting :D

But that's not what my post is about. A couple of days back I came across Donna Hill's video on making toys with cloth and wanting to distract myself today, I figured I'd make some doggie toys. I love getting the dogs toys, it's such fun to see them play and get excited. But good strong toys for the dogs are fairly expensive and so here's where DIY comes in.

Here's Donna's video on Making FREE tug and chew toys for puppies and dogs of all sizes.



Now Donna talks about using old sheets and that I didn't have but I did have a couple of my old pajamas that I loved so much, I wore them until they got holes in them. So here's how to make a chew ring toy with old pajamas.

The pajamas I had were of banyan material.

Cut the elastic bit off first. Then cut along the joint to separate the two legs. You could also do this by opening the stitching but I took the easy route. :)

Cut each leg along the sides or seams to get four strips of cloth.

Cut off the fork area to roughly even out the strips.

Knot two strips together, pulling the knot as tight as you can. This will make sure it doesn't unravel easily when the dog is playing with it.

Keep tying knots with the strips to make a rope. Alternate the sides when tying to get a cleaner finish and even cloth consumption. (I did this with the second and I think it looks better.)

When you have about four inches of cloth left, add another strip to one of the 4 inch pieces and knot it as before to secure it. Kind of how you do it when braiding and adding hair or lace.

Add the last strip on the other side and tie a knot again as before. Make sure that the old and new strips are knotted together at least twice. i.e. they should both be there in two knots. This will create a little bulge in the center with cloth sticking out that will add texture to the toy.

Continue knotting until you have four inches of cloth left.

Pass one strip through between the first and second knot to make a ring. Tie the strips off with a double knot to close the ring.

And voilà! there's your chew ring toy.

Cuckoo immediately approved of it by running away with it :D

You could dip the ring in chicken broth, squeeze out and freeze before giving it to your dog to create hours of chewing. Remember though that you should always supervise play as some dogs can chew through anything (like my Senti) and sometimes they swallow the pieces too. Stuff getting blocked in their intestines isn't something you ever want to experience.

What I really like about the toy is that it is machine washable. :)

I made two of the toys since I had two pajamas. Here's the SpongeBob SquarePants Chew Ring Toy. Sorry you can't see much of Bob, but this pajama was one of my favs. :D

If you have material for two rings you could also loop one into the other before closing the ring to get an interlocked ring toy that you can play tug with too. I needed two rings for two dogs, but I'll be trying to make that an interlocked one soon.

Have you made any toys for your dogs? What do you recommend I try next?