Happy Dog

I saw this neat dog rope toy on a blog....I love bloggy land

It was just too good not to have a go. the difficulty now is that I can't find the same blog agin to acknowledge my source. :(  I tried googling "plaited dog rope" and had hundreds of versions appear. Seems I am late to the home-made plaited rope toy. This one seems to be the best version and is a more effective technique that I used. (more on that later)

There are heaps of versions and the materials used vary from old denim jeans, t-shirts, flannel... basically any strongish fabric will do. Some blogs/makers ten use new fabric??? Why waste money on something that is going to be chewed and slobbered and left in the rain and destroyed by a DOG?

Any way, the version that I made needed:

It needed three old t-shirts, preferably well worn and full of the owner's scent - check.

 The technique was to cut the shirts, starting at the hem in a continuous strip about 5cm wide all the way up the shirt to the arm pits.

 This will give three very long strips of fabric. very long strips.

The instruction was to tie the three ends together with a know and the start plaiting (braiding) until the desired length and then knot together again.

I did this. Never again.
Any idea how hard it is to plait lengths that are each around 5 metres?
The version on the blog linked to this post recommends cutting strips up the length of the shirt giving strips about 20" or 50cm long and 1" or 2.5cm wide. It recommends using about 20 strips for a large dog.

The maker of the liked version twists the strips together in 2 sections.  Most of the blogs plait the strips as I did.  I will try a twisted version and let you know how it goes.

The result of my hour of effort is a collection of FREE dog toys that smell like the boss. :)

I used every part; even the collars - no waste here.
I used left over bits of strips as end ties (didn't last long)
I just tied a series of knots out of the back yoke to make a couple of balls to use as throw toys - our boy LOVES to fetch.

Most of the toys are still going strong several months later even with heaps of playing and chewing and being left outside in the rain.

Here is the happy result.

 action doggy shots

 love those floppy ears (dog that is)

And 'the boss' has an almost endless supply of t-shirts for me to make new toys when the originals eventually wear out.