When I saw these hamburger toys in Pets at Home priced up at £2, I knew it would make the perfect enrichment for a wet Saturday morning when they weren’t going out on a walk.
Though, what made me laugh out loud was the stores claim that the toy would ‘keep your four-legged friend entertained for hours’. Not a chance. I gave them 10 minutes tops – it’s one of the reasons I refuse to pay over a fiver for toys that are, essentially, disposable.
The hamburger’s product description says: “Made from a soft plush fabric, will keep your dog feeling safe and secure. This product is not indestructible so for your pets safety, examine the item regularly for wear and tear and replace when appropriate.”
‘Not indestructible’ was an understatement to say the least.
Soft toys see Phoebe and Frank in a heated competition to find and kill the squeak before removing the insides, leaving the living room rug a sea of stuffing. The hamburger was no exception. I presented the Scamps with their toys and set my timer. Phoebe was quick to discover her squeak, and her tactic was to grab it and pull it straight through the middle of the bun, promptly pulling out any stuffing with it.
Frank opted for a slightly different approach. He suckles corners of the toy to weaken the stitching before nibbling a small hole through which to pull the fluff. It’s safe to say that both dogs adopted the ‘shake it till you break it’ method, which saw stuffing fly across the room until the burgers were little more than a strip of fabric.
Phoebe annihilated Frank in this challenge, and completely destuffed her burger in 4 minutes and 46 seconds – leaving the squeaker entirely in tact. Frank, however, managed to break his squeaker and destroyed his toy in 8 minutes and 39 seconds.
Whilst they didn’t provide ‘hours’ of fun like Pets at Home claimed, the hamburger certainly did offer some weekend enrichment and a few minutes of terrier entertainment.
