DIY dog toy hospital ideas for longer lasting fun! It’s no secret that we love to spoil our dogs, but we’re also conscious of our environmental pawprints. In this post, we’re sharing some of our methods for maintaining and repairing dog toys, repurposing parts, and reusing salvaged materials. It’s a great way to extend useful play, save money, and reduce your waste.
Preventative Medicine
As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Selecting suitable toys for your dog with consideration of size, durability and style of play is the starting point. Once you have toys in play, keeping the dog toys clean and checking for safety on a regular basis can help to extend the useful play life and keep your pet safer. Where needed, quick repairs are much easier than major surgery. And removing a potential toy hazard is much better than a trip to the vet!
Safety first, furfriends! Remember, no matter what a toy is made of or how it’s made, toys are meant for supervised interactive play. Know your dog before giving him or her any new toy, and supervise playtime. Some dogs try to eat toys or parts thereof, whether bought or handmade, and that’s doggone dangerous. Toys are strictly for playing, and playtime is always safer (and much more fun!) with you involved. You can read more in our dog toy safety post, including tips and helpful links for safer play. Have fun and play safe, pups and peeps!
Dog Toy Triage
When a dog toy is damaged or compromised (bought or homemade), it goes into our hospital basket. Nothing fancy. Just a storage basket tucked away in the linen closet that everyone in the family knows to use. It’s a simple holding place for damaged items to keep them away from the pets until I have time to look at them for repair or scrap. Having a designated storage spot makes it easier to consistently quarantine toys for triage instead of leaving them in potentially unsafe play or going straight to the bin.
DIY Dog Toy Repairs - Stitches, Grafts, and Amputations
Dog Toy Repair Supplies and Materials
Supplies for repairing dog toys depend on the type of toy and the scale of the repair. Handy items for your dog toy first aid kit include scissors, replacement squeakers, and basic sewing supplies. Depending on the toy and type of damage, repairs may be hand sewn or machine sewn. See the salvage tips below for ideas on salvaging and reusing materials for future toy making or toy repairs.
Quick Stitches and Toy Patches
A quick stitch up on a small hole or failing seam are the simplest treatments when repairing dog toys. For rips and tears, sewing the tear closed may be viable depending on location and material. Patching might be more viable in other cases. Fleece is a handy patching material since the edges don’t fray, and I always have lots of off cuts available in my crafty scrap stash. Whether hand or machine sewn, make sure any patches are securely attached, just like any element of a toy for safety.
Larger Repairs and Difficult Positions
For edges and ends, patches may be viable or amputations might be an easier or safer option. It’s all case-by-case when it comes to repairing dog toys in our toy hospital. Things can get a bit Frankenstein looking, but dogs don’t care!
Few of our bought stuffed toys have been durable enough to safely repair after being ripped open, but some over the years subjected to similar repairs to the example toy repairs pictured here. Bunny (seen above) had a tailectomy at one point, but the mouth was a later patch job. Our squeaky snake was incredibly tough and lasted for ages. The tail was eventually torn, but it was back into play after a quick tailectomy for a long second life. The cacti toys were both sewn and amputated at different locations over time. Love bone, which Humphrey wanted to play with constantly, was patched in several places over its life and was actually all the cuter for it!
For tug toys, knot repairs or trimming loose or torn bits are quick and easy life-extenders.
Squeaker Replacement
Surgery is a good opportunity to remove and replace damaged squeakers, if you’d like. Depending on the materials, you can also bag a damaged toy in mesh laundry bag and give it a thorough cleaning before replacing the squeakers and repairing the toy. It can be tricky to wash squeaky dog toys without getting wash water trapped inside the squeakers. Yuck to that.
Never replaced a squeaker? It’s an easy way to bring back the noisy fun to old toys. Or add extra noise! I salvage intact squeakers for reuse when possible, but I also have replacement squeakers in different shapes, sizes, and sounds. Squeakers can be tricky to find in shops. Check the toy section of large craft shops, online at specialist suppliers, or large retailers like AliExpress or Amazon. Check out the replacement dog toy squeakers on Amazon (affiliate link) for examples and ideas.
Debating whether a favourite toy has another life? Questioning your resuscitation sewing skills? If you have any doubts about the integrity or safety of a dog toy, always err on the side of caution. If safe repairs aren’t viable, its better to salvage materials (if you’d like to reuse anything) or relegate it to the bin. No toy is worth risking your pet. As above, play safe, furfriends.
Organ Donation
Salvaging Materials from Damaged or Worn Out Dog Toys
Repairing dog toys isn’t always possible, as noted above. Even the best cared for old favourites can be gently loved to death over time. Organ donation in the form of material salvage is one of the easiest ways to extend the useful life of your dog toy materials. When a toy is too damaged to be worth the effort or too far gone to safely repair, I take it apart for scrap or disposal. The scrap materials can be used for future toy repairs, making new toys, or other craft projects.
Saving the Stuffing
For stuffed toys, the easiest reuse is the usually stuffing. I’m able to reuse almost all of the stuffing from bought and made toys, which means more fun without the expense or waste of buying stuffing. I have a few simple mesh laundry bags that I use when picking up the mess after a toy explosion or when pulling apart a toy for salvage. Not only is the mesh bag a handy way to collect and store the stuffing, I can machine wash and air dry the used stuffing in the bag (just like a pillow) and return it clean to my supply stash for future toys and crafts.
Salvaging Functional Squeakers
If squeakers are still functional, they can also be reused. This is hit and miss in our salvage, as sometimes the squeakers have been damaged and no longer squeak. However, we’re able to save quite a lot of squeakers for repairs and toy making.
Other Materials
Usually the exterior materials aren’t salvaged; however, if there are large usable pieces, they can be washed and salvaged just like the stuffing. For other toys, salvage is case by case. See the Earth Day DIY dog tug toy below for a special case example.
DIY Woven Fleece Dog Toy with Salvaged Ball
Here’s a special Earth Day tug toy example of repurposing a special case salvage from a damaged dog toy into a new toy. The ball from a Beco ball and rope toy was reused after the rope was no longer viable. The ball was delightfully durable and the hole in the centre was perfect for weaving into a new toy. You can make a similar tug toy toy with any sturdy salvaged or baught ball dog toy with a ready-made hole or holes. I’m always nervous when I see toys with a cut-through tennis ball or similar. Tennis balls can be hazardous enough without cutting deteriorating their structural integrity. My boys like ball fetch, but as soon as there’s damage, they’re taken away.
The tug toy with ball below was made by weaving the salvaged Beco ball into the centre of a simple spiral DIY fleece dog tug toy. Ready for another round of playtime! You can see the process in the step-by-step photos below. And yes, fleece isn’t the greatest environmental fabric choice, but we have a post about why we use fleece for many of our DIY dog tugs. Prefer a full upcycle? See out post on weaving dog toys with old sweatshirt materials for an easy substitute for the same method.
Pawprints and Toy Life
What are your favourite tips for longer lasting play? Extending toy life? Do you have a favorite toy that last and lasts? Let us know – we’d love to hear about it! Have a pawesome weekend, furfriends, and we hope that you all enjoy some outdoor fun together for Earth Day and every day! Woofs from Dogtor Oli and Nurse Humphrey at the Dalmatian DIY dog toy hospital.
