There are thousands of people searching for that perfect stuffed toy: the one their dog will love playing with and which will last longer than a couple of days.
The Tearrible sounds like that toy, but for us, it wasn’t. It’s a toy meant to be played with in one limited way—a way a dog might or might not enjoy. Surely there are dogs for whom this would be a great toy. But be sure to understand how the toy actually works before you assume your dog is one of them.
Even though it is advertised as very tough, and gives hope to us guardians of super chewers, the company advises against letting the dog just play with it. They recommend playing tug using the toy, but a very specific kind of tug game that stretches the meaning of the word. The toy is not well suited for normal tug play at all.
Tearribles
Tearribles was a Kickstarter project of an innovative dog toy in 2017. The inventors got great backing and set up manufacturing. The toy was a sturdily made stuffed monster featuring removable appendages the dog could pull out: legs, arms, and a tail fastened with Velcro. After the dog ripped them out, the human could press them back in place.
They now have an adorable (yes, it’s really cute) virus toy with16 protein spikes to pull off.
I was an early donor/investor and paid enough to get the Extra Large Tearrible. It seemed like a good idea—if the dog did indeed enjoy playing with it the way it was designed.
That turned out to be a big “if.”
Pros
- The toys are absolutely adorable.
- They are made well.
- They are tougher than a lot of toys.
- For certain dogs it could be a favorite toy.
Cons
- I believe the signature removable limbs are of limited interest for most dogs.
- Dogs can shred and destuff the toys, despite the advertising.
- They are marketed as tug toys, but they lack the most basic features of a good tug toy.
- There is misinformation about dogs on the website.
The marketing takes advantage of our desire for the impossible: a toy that is fun for a dog to rip up that doesn’t rip up.
My Experience with the Tearrible
I received mine in early 2018. I gave it to Clara and Zani with some other toys. Within just a couple of minutes, Clara had removed an ear from the Tearrible. She swallowed it before I could intervene. She usually spits out the things she tears off, but this piece went right down.
I supervised more closely and let her continue with the toy. She did pull the bottom legs unit off (as the toy is designed for). Then she immediately set to work chewing out the seams she had exposed on the bottom corners. She pulled out a fair amount of stuffing while I made sure she didn’t swallow it. But after she tore off two more pieces of the outer fabric, I traded her some goodies and took away the toy. I didn’t want her to ingest any more fabric after that entire ear.
I had my answer. Despite the marketing, the toy wasn’t magically tough.
Full disclosure: What I did was not how the Tearribles are now instructed to be used. The toy didn’t come with instructions to use it as a tug toy then, although they did say to play with it with your dog. My goal was to check the sturdiness and observe how much pleasure the dogs took in ripping the limbs off, the main selling point. They didn’t. The limbs were just one more bite to remove and discard. They wanted to get deeper into the ripping.
Perhaps breeds that have had the dissection part of the predatory sequence diminished would enjoy them more, unlike my Arkansas varmint dogs.
YouTube and Social Media
I searched for videos and posts about dogs having a great time with Tearribles. I found no video on YouTube of extended (or even more than brief) play in the manner the company recommends. The company marketing video has two short segments of a dog playing with the toy totaling 23 seconds: a few seconds of ripping appendages off while playing tug with a person and a few solo kill-shakes. There is a video review by a fellow who only shows the features of the toys and never shows his dogs playing with them, and there’s a video by Dr. Patricia McConnell of her border collie happily pulling the spikes off the virus, but not playing tug with it. She does have two dogs who enjoy removing the appendages and don’t do further dissection. On her blog, Dr. McConnell cautions not to offer the toy to a dog who swallows small, removed parts.
I found a couple of positive posts about dogs who liked their Tearribles in an enrichment Facebook group. They played with the toys as intended and the toys lasted.
Social Media Addendum
I found some videos. Instagram, of course. Keep in mind, though, that it’s the perfect medium to show a dog tearing the toy apart…once. IG videos have to be short. So it’s hard to tell how how long a dog’s interest lasts. But you can see some very happy dogs pulling limbs off toys.
The Marketing Is the Problem
So while there seem to be some dogs out there who enjoy the Tearrible, the company doesn’t sufficiently clarify the very narrow intended use of the toy.
Original Marketing
There was originally no real caution in the whole Tearribles website that dogs could actually tear the toy up. They implied the opposite. And they made the following strange statement:
In our tests, we played tug of war for 45 minutes with our 80lb destructo-dog, Izzy. The results? Not a single tear on the toy, and one really tired dog.
I took this text directly off their site in 2018, but it is no longer there.
The statement is odd. Playing tug with a human is not how dogs usually rip up toys. Supervised tug doesn’t test a toy. Any well-made toy can have a good lifespan if you play tug with it rather than giving the dog unfettered access.
Current Marketing
The Tearribles company has amended its claims and includes some qualifiers now. This is from the FAQ page.
Question: Are Tearribles chew toys/indestructible toys?
Answer: No. Dog teeth, no matter how small, are built to crush bones and tear tendons – there is no material (safe to be in your dog’s mouth) that your dog cannot chew through.
True! But they still focus on their toys’ toughness. Their YouTube movie says dogs can destroy any stuffed object in seconds, then says, “It’s time we stopped insulting our dogs’ abilities with weak toys.” That’s not how you sell a tug toy; it’s how you sell a chew toy.
They state on the website that if you play with the Tearrible in a structured way with your dog, the dog will learn it is your “together” toy and will stop trying to “annihilate” it. My take: true if you remove the toy after your “together” time, but that’s something you can do with any toy.
And they top it off with this false statement:
Dogs chew non-food things for two reasons:
- they are teething
- they are bored
No. Chewing is a natural and necessary behavior for dogs. Dissection is one step in the predatory sequence. Giving your dog a full and stimulating life will not prevent him from wanting to chew stuff up. In fact, chewing stuff up is part of a full and stimulating life for most dogs.
Lewis and the Tearrible
Here’s the hero of our story. I wrote much of this review three years ago. But I never published it, because I didn’t want to post yet another grouchy review. I felt bad about criticizing a well-meaning company that sought to create a novel toy for dogs, even though I disagreed with their claims.
I still have the toy, even with its holes and leaking filling. When Lewis first came, all the Velcroed appendages still worked. He figured the toy out and pulled it apart. He did seem to enjoy that. I put the toy back together and he pulled it apart a few more times, sometimes while I held it. But the minute I stopped putting it back together, he started working on the seams. He removed one of the Velcro strips (I nabbed it before he or Clara swallowed it). So now the bottom legs no longer reattach. But although Lewis likes the toy, even he doesn’t want to limit himself to pulling off arms, legs, and the tail. He wants to continue on to destuff it. But I did finally get a dog who seemed to enjoy the signature aspect of the toy. One dog out of four pulls the limbs off, but zero dogs out of four were happy to stop at that point.
Stuffed Toys and My Dogs
Every one of my dogs has enjoyed pulling toys apart and destuffing them. I’ve tried tough toys, and the tougher they were, the less fun they were for the dogs.
I finally decided the only stuffed toys that made sense for us were cheap ones they could rip up while supervised. I supervise as they pull them apart, then throw away the husks when they become unsafe. Before the pandemic, I would pick them up at garage sales. Nowadays, I concentrate more on edible chews and playing tug and scent games.
Why Isn’t the Tearrible a Good Tug Toy?
Unless you want to redefine tugging as a dog repeatedly pulling off discrete appendages and starting over, this is not a tug toy. It does not have the features of a good tug toy: long and slender, attractive to chase, a clear target area for the dog, and a handle for the human. The torso of the Tearrible is a nightmare for the human to hold on to.
The company didn’t originally advertise the Tearrible as a tug toy. Check out this post from July 2018. There is no mention of tugging. They may have added the directions to tug after too many people (like me) tried to use it as a regular chew toy.
Alternatives
- If your dog likes to tug, make or buy a real tug toy. There are hundreds on the market. The best tug toy is something your individual dog wants to chase and grab and that you can hang onto. Try Clean Run or Dog Dreams Toys. You can even try a flirt pole if they are permitted in your area. Playing with a flirt pole is like tug on steroids; your dog gets to chase and tug.
- If your dog prefers to shred and dissect, you are probably already letting them tear up stuffed toys. Be sure to supervise your dog closely so they don’t ingest fabric or plastic squeaker parts. There are always risks of swallowing, however. Check out the Canine Enrichment Facebook group for more ideas for safe shredding activities.
- If your dog enjoys chewing and/or squeaking a fabric toy and you don’t want them to rip it apart, there are some decent options. The Outward Hound Fire Biterz toy is made of firehose material. The goDog toys might do for some dogs. My dogs don’t chew up the canvas-covered toys like Kong Wubbas. The Tearrible may be tough enough for some dogs. And maybe you’ll just want to get one to support an independent business with a very cute and sturdy product.
Bottom Line
The Tearrible may be the perfect toy for some dogs, and I hope it finds its way to them. But it looks like a chew toy, and they market it that way. At the same time, they instruct you to use it as a tug toy and it’s not designed well for tug at all.
Related Posts
- Other Reviews by Eileen (Not All Cranky)
- How I Helped My Dog Love the Sound of Velcro
- 7 Great Benefits of Flirt Pole Play for You and Your Dog
Copyright 2022 Eileen Anderson
Photo of well-used tug toys copyright 2022 and courtesy of Marge Rogers. All other photos copyright Eileen Anderson.
Fluff n Tuff is my go to for really tough stuffed squeaky toys. They’re the only ones that have ever lasted more than a day in my house of two destuffers. Most of them have lasted several weeks (slowly losing their separately sewn on limbs) while one became a favored “baby” that one of my dogs would carry around with him and that one lasted many months. They’re about triple the cost of the cheap flimsy toys so I only get them once a year or so but my dogs seem to get a lot of enjoyment out of them.
We tried a Tearrible and had a similar experience to yours. Ripping the limbs off took less than 15 seconds and both dogs wanted to continue destruction after that. Tugging with them makes little sense as the Velcro will come apart with one or two good tugs. My dogs do like destruction tugging (often with scraps of cheap toys) as well as normal tug with toys they don’t have free access to, but in the first case even a cheap toy skin lasts for a good minute or so of slow ripping which seems much more satisfying for all involved.
Alex, thanks for the recommendation! I don’t believe I’ve tried those before. I noticed the price, but worth it if it lasts a while. And I agree about the slow ripping. Those scraps can be the most fun! Thanks for your comment.
Eileen
Eileen, I’ve enjoyed your approach to and discussions of doggo behavior for a few years now.
My comment is tangential to this article (cranky though it is). You linked to a Victoria Stilwell article discussing prey drive and the predatory sequence. I’m no dog trainer, but Ms. Stilwell’s assertion that “If your dog has bitten a child or killed a small animal, it is vital to keep her safely confined in your home or yard/garden area and leashed at all times when in public” is just ridiculous. I think dogs are capable of distinguishing between prey animals and people. My own dogs, both standard poodles, have killed and consumed small animals (rabbits, birds, and one other indistinguishable furry thing) which dared to come into our yard. They have yet to track and attack a human being of any size, or maybe they just disposed of the remains uncharacteristically neatly. To say that they’re a threat to people because they acted like dogs is slanderous.
Talk about cranky.
Gerald,
Yikes! Thank you! I removed the link. I didn’t read far enough. I didn’t like any of my options for a link for that; I may edit in the sequence myself later. Thank you, thank you! Cranky for a cause!
Eileen
My Belgian shepherd does destroy toys while tugging but it is slower than if she had free access to them. I also prefer to have sturdy toys. Fake fur doesn’t last here although the tug toy I had was likely cheap. It lasted like three or four sessions. I haven’t tried real leather/fur. (Cannot tell which one the lot played fluff toy in the pic is.)
Her latest toy was a fire hose dummy and I need to replace it as its surface has started to erode.
This dog does not destroy her plush toys at home. Weird. She holds them and squeezes again and again. Beep beep beep. And usually when I’m on the phone.
HI Eileen,
I tell my clients to think of stuffed squeaky toys like fancy coffee. It costs some money, and doesn’t last very long and it has no health benefits, you could even make it it cheaper at home, but boy, it sure tastes good while you drink it. So go ahead and splurge on your dog. One of my boys loves a particular rubber squeaker toy which he destroys in about 5 minutes. Once the squeaker is out, the toy is no longer interesting. So he gets 1 or 2 a year. Because they are just that much fun.
Lisa, that’s a really nice way to look at it!
Eileen