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PAWsitivley Tough - West Paw Review
Every dog parent knows finding a cute, durable, affordable toy that your dog loves is basically the holy grail! Double that if it’s a plush or soft toy. Having two active and enthusiastic dogs ourselves, it just makes it that much harder to find a toy that they both love and won’t tear to pieces - they may be small dogs but man, they can be tough on their toys. So, when we discovered West Paw’s selection of soft toys, well let’s just say we’re up to four and counting!
West Paw is known for primarily their wide range of toys, which features both hard (rubber) or soft (plush), and have been designed for a range of chewers from gentle to tough, and come with a guarantee. Meaning if you bought something and it doesn’t live up to expectations it’s a simple process on their website to make a claim and get a replacement - so they really stand by the quality of their products.
An American company based in Montana, they control the production process from start to finish and have committed to creating safe and durable toys for your fur baby using eco-friendly materials and business practices so you can feel good about your choice! But most importantly: dogs LOVE these toys!
Daisy tends to always go for the soft toys with a squeaker, which though she doesn’t tend to try to destroy them (she leaves that task mostly up to Elvis) she is tough on them: tug of war, fetch, running around with them in her mouth, stealing them back from Elvis… it takes a toll on a toy! She loves squeakers so whichever soft toy we choose to get her has to have a good squeaker: one that isn’t too hard for her to squeak (you should see her get frustrated when she can’t squeak something, it’s adorable) but can also live up to fairly constant squeaking, and so far West Paw has yet to disappoint. When she and Elvis were puppies, we started off their West Paw collection with one of the Big Sky Teddies, which are super cute and made of a soft fleece material (and yes, has a great squeaker!), as well as a couple of the Hurley Dog Bones, a brightly coloured rounded end rubber chew toy that they still love today!
One of the best things about West Paw is that they make most of their toys in a variety of sizes so whether you have a big or small dog, or at any point in between, there’s the perfect size for a great play. Our dogs never grew out of the ones that they got as puppies, but it’s good to know that had they gotten bigger there were larger options to replace some of their favourite toys.
Now the best thing of all is how both durable and adorable particularly the soft toys are. There are a number of options: imaginary creatures as well as recognizable animals. Some come with multiple squeakers, others with no stuffing, others still with rubber chew elements… so something for every dog’s taste! Currently, our everyday play soft toy West Paw collection includes a beaver, a trout and a grizzly bear - all of which are adorable and have held up incredibly well to miss Daisy’s constant play and Elvis’s constant need to steal toys from her.
The trout is a gorgeous maroon colour, and is a fairly abstract but still recognizable as a fish shape, a shape that is awesome for fetch or tug of war! It’s quite aerodynamic so you can throw it quite far, and is shaped in a way that it’s not awkward to handle or throw.
The beaver feels very patriotic: it looks like the traditional cartoon of a beaver made into a stuffy! The tail is quilted and a different, slightly furrier material than the fleece material of the other West Paw toys we have, and can be flipped up and down which is fun for tug of war and just general play. The grizzly is largest of the three toys we have in general rotation, and is also made of that thick fleece material. Other than the Big Sky Teddy, we’ve had the grizzly the longest and it’s held up beautifully: the dark grey colour means that it hasn’t become discoloured over time, and as with the other two, the simple shape means that there are less seams and so less opportunities to find a weak spot to tear it apart!
The store I work in carries these toys, and they’re something I recommend time and time again - of course they’re not indestructible but they’re honestly some of the best options for soft toys for rough chewers on the market, at affordable prices and a brand you can trust! Just remember: for some dogs, destroying toys is the fun of it all, so if your dog does manage to destroy any of these, rest assured they had a good time doing so - plus you have a contingency plan with the guarantee!
I know Daisy and Elvis will be adding more West Paw to their collection very soon, and we’ll keep buying this brand as long as we can get our hands on it! Try one out with your fur baby and let us know what you think on Twitter or Instagram. Dog photos are, of course, always welcome!
Happy playing babes!