My Dogs are Smarter (Or how I found the best Dog-toy ever)

Every year the city of Glendale hosts an annual holiday celebration at Murphy Park and the surrounding quarters in downtown Glendale where 59th Ave., Glendale and Grand Avenues meet. Glendale Glitters begins Thanksgiving weekend and runs through the Christmas holiday and even into January. The park and the environs around the square hang lights everywhere--red, green, blue, yellow, an assortment of bright, festive colored lights all over the place! The local shops (best antique shopping in the Phoenix-area for my money) stay open later and craft booths and street performers dot the park landscape. The final weekend in January loses the crafts, but includes live music and a number of hot air balloons.

Last year our only visit to Glendale Glitters was on Saturday night of the final weekend. We wandered through the streets enjoying the music and browsing the local shops north of the park. There we found a cute little specialty-shop devoted to cats and dogs.

Our lab Lacy is what they call a "hard-chewer." This animal demolishes raw-hides in less than 5 minutes. Hard rubber toys would without fail be torn into pieces and rendered un-usable. Up to this point in time, we'd never found any soft chew-toy that could last more than 5-10 minutes with her. Invariably, the poor stuffed-whatever-it-was developed a huge gash and it's innards begin pouring forth as the dog dances about, shaking it's prey wildly. Is there nothing we can give this dog that won't end up in the trash can?

Yes, there is! It called to us from high on a shelf near the cash-register. It comes to us from the good folks at Planet Dog. Of what or how it is made, I do not care. I only care that it is indestructable!

It is just a rubber ball, but one that must incorporate some super-secret rubber technology as it never hardens and cracks nor can your dog tear at it or chew it apart. We are 388 days removed from the purchase of Lacy's first Orbee ball and it still is as soft and pliable as it was on day one. It also shows no signs of being "compromised" by hard-chewing.

We love this thing so much that we turned around and ordered two more for Christmas--another for Lacy and one of her own for younger sister Cassie. Got a hard-chewer? Buy one; buy ten...you can't go wrong with these things!