Why does dogs take stuffing out of their toys?

[starfire]

Does your dog take the stuffing out of its stuff dog toys?

Do you think they may get this from their ancestors,
the wolves? Maybe they consider this a hunting game,
kill the stuff animal and take the innerards out?

Have you ever watched your dog do this? It can be
quite comical to watch the dog destroy the stuff
animal.

Take my dog for instance; when she gets a new toy she
will carry it around with days playing with the new
toy. Then all of the sudden, she will chew on the poor
stuff animal for days trying to rip a hole in it
somewhere. After the hole gets in the stuff animal she
starts taking the stuffing out. Most times she will
look like a Santa dog with all
the white stuffing all over her face. After she gets
the squeaker out then she is done playing with the
stuff animal for a while. She will go get one of the
stuff animals she has already done the to and play
with it.

So, here is my dilemma as a dog mommy, is she just
wanting a new toy? Is it the thrill of the hunt? Or, I
am beginning to wonder it may be the squeaker she is
trying to kill?

Does other dog moms go threw this? Yes, she is quite
spoiled but she is very much loved. LOL

[Deleted]

It is my belief that they rip the stuffing out because it is there. Every dog I've ever had did that. First they bite the button-eyes off, then they bite the nose off, then they pull all the stuffing out of the eye and nose holes. This part of the procedure might take only hours, but sometimes it will take days. Then there's an empty, eyeless carcass that they carry around for sometimes months before they decide to finish the job of dismembering it.

I only get our dogs hard rubber toys now, but they still have the scraps of "Mr. Bear," "Lambchop," and "Pink Piggy" to play with, and they do, even if said scrap is only a few square inches. I go around a couple times a day, picking up all the pieces and putting them back in the toybox until next time.

~Lannie

[Kathy]

Before all my old dogs went over the Rainbow Bridge, they took great delight in pulling the stuffing out of every new stuffy I brought home. And mine did it in the same order that Lannie described!!

Now I've got kittens and those little demons are just as bad. The other morning I came out into the dining room and it looked like it had snowed! There was batting all over the carpet.
They had found a small area in one of the dining room chair cushions that had a few broken stitches.
They must have spent the whole night pushing their little paws in that tiny hole and pulling out stuffing!
They slept all day!!

[Deleted]

LOL, Kathy! Pulling stuffing is very tiring work you know! (One of our "little ones" still pulls stuffing out of one of the dining chair cushions - he doesn't bother the other ones, so I keep pushing it back in and he keeps pulling it back out. He's almost 4, so I guess he's not going to grow out of it.)

~Lannie

[ardie]

We had a Yorkie once that absolutely hated squeaky toys. He'd attack the toy and pullout the squeaker. then he'd spit the squeaker out and parade around the house with the toy.

I think dogs just like to disembowel things.

[vera]

Well, over the last few days, Ira has tried to disembowel his new sqeaky trout, amputated the tail off of Mr. Mouse and tried to do the same to Mr. Mouse's back leg, and topped it off with de-stuffing part of the comforter on the bed (the other side... he already did the same to the frontside on the foot end). All of it was done in protest when he was "left alone" for "too long" (like twenty minutes)... I think I'll sell him to the gypsies next time they come through here. For the time being, he gets to wear his good-dog outfit (muzzle) when in the house, and I did stump surgery on the trout and Mr. Mouse. Not sure what to do about the 12-inch rips in the somewhat deflated comforter. Good thing it only came from the Salvation Army store

[Deleted]

it goes way back to their hunting instincts. chase, catch, kill, eat. pretty basic actually. "squeakys" have a voice, and until it's silenced, it is still 'alive'.
Years of training, raising and showing dogs taught me 'something' I guess... lol

Kaza