Ta-da! I finally finished Mr. Penguin for Yoshi

[TorchTheWitch]

In case you missed Mr. Lobster - the cover I made for Yoshi's wiggly giggly ball - here he is...



I finally found the large sized wiggly giggly ball but it turned out to be a little bigger than the one he has (which I guess is the medium sized one that no one seems to make anymore. So to make the penguin I just added a little to the pattern pieces for the body and kind of winged it to make the head and wings. Do penguins have some kind of a tail? For some reason I can't remember. I know they have feet, but I couldn't figure out how to make them or where to put them.

So here's Mr. Penguin finally completed (I had to quietly sneak these photos while Yoshi was outside or I'd never get a decent photo of it until after he was done getting it dirty, slobbery and chewed up)...



Here's what it looks like from the side...



And here's Yoshi already eating Mr. Penguin to bits (nom nom nom!)...





And half an hour later poor Mr. Penguin is already filthy from being rolled around in the dirt and needs some surgery to fix the bits Yoshi already chewed. *sigh*.

[Texasgal]

1. Great JOB!

That is so cute! Looks like Yoshi loves it too! Good MAMA!

[TorchTheWitch]

4. Thanks!

He hasn't left it alone all day. He's been chasing it all over the house, throwing it around the room (I'm terrified he's going to fling it straight into the tv!) and shaking it like mad so it bashes first one of his shoulders and then the other over and over and over. He even slept with it for awhile. I think he believes he's conquered it now because he's already buried it in his binkie and sat on it triumphantly. I have no idea why he does that with his toys, but he seems terribly proud of himself doing it. Maybe he figures it's good and dead after smothering it and squishing it with his big butt. Once he's done that he leaves it for awhile and does something else sometimes for days before going back to it. One of these days I have to get photos of him doing the Binkie Bury and Butt Bash to one of his toys.


I've got one more ball on order that should be here around the beginning of September (it was on back order), but I'm not sure what to make for a cover. I'm kind of limited in scrap material, but I still have a lot of the red and black. Maybe a ladybug? I always thought Mr. Lobster looked like Mr. Bug until I did the claws and tail.

[Walk away]

2. I love Mr. Penguin! Good thing he doesn't live here!

Mr Penguin would be Mr. Flat Penguin.

[TorchTheWitch]

3. well, he is flat without the ball inside it

One of the things I love about the wiggly giggly ball is that it's the one thing my Akitas haven't managed to destroy though they sure have tried hard. I made both the lobster and the penguin with a velcro strip along the bottom so I can take the cover off easily and throw it in the wash. Already Mr. Penguin is looking too much like Mr. Brown Bear he's so covered with goopy slobbery dirt. Why must Yoshi always have to roll his toys through the dirt as soon as he gets them? What is that, seasoning?

What's really strange is they don't market the large sized ball to pets anymore and instead market them to kids, but it's exactly the same ball. I had a lot of trouble finding it because of that. The small sized one (about the size of of whiffle ball) they market to pets, but it's still the same damn ball but smaller.

Oh dear. Half of one of Mr. Penguin's wings (flippers?) has been chewed to a slobbery string. Back into surgery he goes. *sigh*

[Walk away]

5. Mr. Penguine! I hardly knew ye!

[beac]

6. My Jindo (an Akita "cousin" so I'm told) is also a destroyer of toys,

Oddly, he's picked one or two stuffed toys that he seems to have designated as "friends" and they just get carried around, but most new additions get drawn, quartered and disemboweled pretty quickly.

One item that he's not yet managed to chew to bits is his Nylabone DuraChew Ring

http://www.nylabone.com/product-finder/by-brand/dura-chew-plus-textured-ring.htm

He loves it and we joke that he views it as a "project" b/c he seems to devote a set amount of time each day into attempting its destruction.

Thanks for the tip on the Wiggly Giggly. Do you think the larger size is better (i.e. less destructible) for "extreme chewers" like my guy?

[TorchTheWitch]

9. oooo! that looks interesting!

I'm not sure it's the kind of think he's want to chew on (he's never paid one bit of attention to his little regular nylabone), but maybe he'd like something like that.

Though it's hard to tell from his photos, Yoshi is a really big guy. He weighs more than I do, and when he stands on his hind legs we're about eyeball to eyeball though admittedly I'm a little person. He can't get his jaws around this big sized ball but because of it's size it isn't as stiff since the center is hollow except for the tube thingies that make the giggle noise. Because of that he can grab this ball fairly easily because it will squish just enough so he can get a hold of it. His medium sized one that I made the lobster cover for is the same thing but because it's smaller it doesn't squish as easily. I finally figured that out examining both balls because otherwise they're exactly the same except for their color. I did get a small one for him, but he just doesn't have much interest in small sized balls. He poked around at it once and it's been sitting in a corner of the yard untouched ever since. The small one seems a lot harder though just because it's small and doesn't have nearly the amount of empty space on the inside. Maybe you could try both?

I'm not sure how big a Jindo is... does he like big sized toys or only likes them if he can get his mouth around it to pick it up? Also, from what I remember the small ball doesn't make the same kind of noise as the medium one they don't make anymore and the large one... it's a much higher pitch, and Yoshi much prefers the lower tones of toys that make noise like the bigger wiggly giggly balls and his farting hedgehogs.

If he's a real chewer though I'd go with the bigger ball since it isn't likely he could really get a good enough hold of it to eat it. He may not want to eat it anyway because the inconsistent noise is so fascinating to them. I think that's why none of my Akitas ever chewed up the wiggly giggly ball... they're so mystified that it doesn't always make the noise when they thought it should. THough Yoshi eats the covers for the balls he's never tried to eat the ball itself. You can even see in their faces how perplexed they get when they play with it that the noise is totally random. They often got bored with regular squeaky toys because they figured out that if they do X the noise happens - every time. Once they get that figured out it's not so much fun for them anymore. But the inconsistency of the wiggly giggly ball keeps them fascinated. I think that was kind of the idea when they invented it - a really good toy for the intelligent and discriminating dog to keep them constantly interested.

[beac]

10. Oddly, mine wasn't interested in regular Nylanbones either.

The ring has a different texture and it's harder (which you would think would make it LESS fun to chew, right?). It's also "chicken flavored" which may add to the appeal (though I think he rejected "flavored" Nylas in the past.)

He's about 60 pounds but packed into a frame that looks like a 45-pound dog. He's very lean, but he's 100% muscle. Apparently, Jindos exert 1200lbs of bite pressure-- 300lbs MORE than a German Shepherd, so they say.

I think the big Wiggly Giggly might be good so he couldn't get his whole mouth around it. That's usually his first move in the destruction process. But maybe the sound would deter him. Hoping I can find one in a local pet supply store so I can see what he thinks before committing.

One caveat on the ring, if you get it, make sure you know where it is when it gets dark. Stepping on that thing in the middle of the night is PAINFUL.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. We have three dogs. Two hard chewers and one light chewer.

We have three appropriately sized Nylabones, all pretty much unchewed.

I dunno what gives with that.

[beac]

12. There must be dogs out there that love them b/c they've been around forever, but

I've never had a dog that had more than a passing interest in regular Nylabone. Most of them flat-out rejected the things. I vowed to never buy another many years ago.

The only reason we got the ring is b/c we had my Jindo in the PetSmart with us and were trying to distract him so that he'd let the associate show us how to put on a Gentle Leader. She grabbed the ring off the rack and he almost didn't wait for us to take it out of the package. It was love at first sight.

[TorchTheWitch]

13. you'd have to try a kid's store or toy store for the large sized one

since they only market the small sized one for pets and now market the large sized ones for kids. The company that made them used to be Multipet, but apparently Toysmith owns them now (design, name, logo and all) and it doesn't look like the market to actual physical stores at all though I did find the small one in a specialty pet shop near me but they don't carry them anymore.

This is the large ball...
http://www.amazon.com/Wiggly-Giggly-Toysmith-assorted-individually/dp/B000RA1R5A

Since for some reason Toysmith insists on claiming that it's "soft and squeezable" when it is ANYTHING but that I wasn't really sure if it was the right ball or not, so I decided if it wasn't what I wanted I'd send it back. You could do that... order it from Amazon, see if your dog likes it, and if he doesn't for some reason wipe it off with a damp cloth, put it back in the box and return it. I've returned a number of things to Amazon without any problem.

Oh, good advice about the nylabone! I never wear shoes in the house and I'm always tripping over and stepping on Yoshi's toys or my latest project or some damn thing I left hanging around to be tripped over or stomped on.

I've just been reading about Jindos on Wikipedia... everything about their personality and temperament sounds like an Akita. Clever naughty tricksters. LOL! That is some incredible bite strength they've got! Akitas have a lot, but they're also great big beasties.

Little baby Jindos!



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OMG, don't you just want to stuff your whole face in their fat furry bellies and just nom nom nom these adorable babies! Who wouldn't be completely smitten with such little fuzzy darlings???

[beac]

14. We adopted our fellow at about 7 months (the shelter's best guess) but I must admit

we've stalked a few "Jindo puppies" videos on YouTube imagining what he must have been like as a wee one:

&feature=related

This isn't him, but this was the first pic we found that began to convince us we had a Jindo on our hands (the shelter had thought he was a "Lab mix&quot . It could be his twin and he sits in that exact post most of the time:

[gaspee]

15. those Jindo puppies

Look exactly like my Shiba puppies!

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Give Yoshi and extra hug from me.

I was thinking of him as we watched "Hachi, A Dog's Tale"

[TorchTheWitch]

8. I should never have watched that movie - I cried my eyeballs out

It's actually quite close to the true story of Hachiko who waited every day at the train station for his master to come home on train. Hachiko continued to go to the train station every day and wait for a master that was never coming for an amazing nine years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachiko

There are several statues of him in Japan (and his body was actually stuffed and is on display in a museum). I had a customer at one of the clubs that I worked at who worked in Japan for about a year and has seen the statue of him at Shibuya Station. He said the bronze is shiny on the head and front legs where people pet it for good luck or perhaps to pay tribute.

It was also Hachiko that was really responsible for the first Akita coming to the US. Helen Keller read the newspaper story about him and was so moved that on a trip to Japan she specifically went to the Akita prefecture to see about obtaining one. An Akita pup named Kamikaze-Go was given to her as a gift and thus became the first Akita in the US. She said this upon recieving the gift of the pup...

"His devoted master left him by my side, and I sensed it was with a wrench of his heart that he turned and went to shore. The puppy pathetically sniffed around the deck for the familiar footsteps. As the ship surged into a world he did not know, he transferred his trustful loyalty to me, and such a compliment from an Akita dog made me bow my head in humility."

That just makes me tear up.

She had a very profound bond with Kamikaze-Go that she wrote frequently about for the rest of her life though sadly "Kami" died at only seven and a half months of age from distemper. She wrote of the tragic loss to the previous owner, and after the war ended the government of Japan made her an official governmental gift of Kami's littermate, Kenzan-Go, so once again she became the only Akita dog owner in the US. But not for long. At the end of the war American servicemen who had fallen in love with the breed were bringing Akitas home, and that's how we have Akitas here today. I think it's really cool that it all started with a moving story about Hachiko that delighted all of Japan and one very extraordinary American woman.

[gaspee]

16. My friend bred

the Shiba puppies that played Hachiko as a puppy. She's still got one of them.

[TorchTheWitch]

17. How cool!

I wondered if they might have been Shiba pups they used. At that age an Akita should have been bigger over all. They look so similar except for size when they're little fat fuzzy babies.

Oh, I should never have watched that film... I sobbed and sobbed all the way through it and a good hour after it was over.

[gaspee]

18. Me too

And yet I rewatch it once in awhile, LOL!