DIY Dog Toys With Items You Have At Home

It wouldn’t be a lie if my co-workers told you that I go through dog toys pretty quickly. Because I do. I’ve been known to destroy so-called indestructible dog toys. My parents have spent a lot of time and money searching for toys to keep me happy and occupied, but yet, I always seem to tear them to shreds.

Anyway, I recently joined Pinterest and noticed that a lot of humans are making their own DIY dog toys out of household items that they already owned! So I donned my office-manager hat and assigned a task to create DIY dog toys to one of my coworkers. Here is what we came up with.

Did you know that you can use so many household items to create DIY dog toys for your pets? We had such a hard time choosing what our first toy creation would be, but finally we settled on the ultimate combination of an old sweater, a wiffle ball, and dog treats! You’ll need scissors, a knife, a cutting board, and about 5 minutes (or fewer) of your time to make this fun, upcycled toy for your dog. Trust me: They’ll love you for it!

Step 1

Cut some fabric from your sweater. This project would work with a tee shirt, old pillowcase, or any other fabric you have laying around. It doesn’t have to be clothing, just something you don’t mind ruining! What we did here is cut the entire back of the sweater off. So basically, you can just start at the bottom and cut a big “U” up toward the neck and away back toward the bottom on the opposite side.

Once you have the back cut out, you can discard of the rest of the fabric. (Hint: I wouldn’t do that just yet, because I might have another DIY project planned for my co-worker! Save the sleeves for my next post!)

Step 2

Prepare the wiffle ball and treats. Depending on the size of your ball and the size of the treats, you may need to cut the treats so that they will fit inside of the ball. We had to do that! Once all of your treats are the right size, just put them in the holes of the ball!

Now, don’t tell anyone I’m telling you this, but I found out why the human wanted to put the treats inside of the ball. I heard her say in confidence to another co-worker that she put the treats in there to keep me busy! She knew I wouldn’t give up until I got every last morsel out of the ball, so she put a bunch in there to trick me! Well, the joke’s on her, because I could play all day. The more treats I get, the happier I am!

I should stop here and say that if you wanted to go no further with this dog toy, I think your dog would still have loads of fun! I would chase a treat-filled ball around all day! However, you did just cut up a sweater that you could have donated, so let’s continue!

Step 3

After you’ve gotten the treats in the ball, it will be time to wrap it all up. Depending on the size of your garment, you might want to cut some fabric off, which is what we chose to do. After seeing the finished product, I think it would have been fine if we kept the extra fabric, but it looks great both ways. Use your best judgement when cutting the fabric. My human friend says that a square dimension might be the best way to cut.

With your ball in the middle of the fabric, pull all of the fabric around the ball, and tie a knot at the base. There are a few ways you can accomplish this. If your ball isn’t too huge, you could use an elastic or hair tie to secure the ball in place. We didn’t want to do this because I’m a pro at unraveling toys, and the humans were worried that I’d swallow the elastic if it broke. So we took a scrap of fabric and tied it around the base. We tied it so many times that I’m not sure it will ever come off, but if it does, it’s super long, and less likely I’ll swallow it on accident.

Because I really love tug toys, we decided to cut up the ends of the toy so I can tug at it a little. This was so easy. Holding the bottom of the fabric, cut upward toward the base of the ball in whatever your desired thickness or thinness.

If you ask me, once you’re done with the project, the dog toy resembles an octopus!

See?! Creating DIY dog toys with items you already have at home is easy! Have you ever made your own dog toys? How did your dog like it?

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