Product Review: Silly Bums Bee

The R2P Pet Silly Bums are basically the back half of a stuffed dog toy. They come in a variety of different...um...species and two or three sizes.

Photo by Erin Koski

Our bee bum arrived in the disappointing May BarkBox, and was part of the reason why this box was so lackluster.

For starters, I was familiar with the Silly Bums toy line before this one arrived on our doorstep, and I've always found them sort of dumb. It's not a whole stuffy, it's just half. Which half? The butt! Stuffed animals have butts. Sometimes those butts are funny, particularly if it's a baboon stuffy. I find the butts are just as funny when they are part of a whole animal. Removing everything else just feels like they're beating me over the head with the joke.

Photo by Erin Koski

I could probably find some love in my heart for this bumblebee arse if it was just a fuzzy plush toy. It's not though, and when I found it in the BarkBox I had to double check the tag to make sure this thing was actually intended to be a dog toy.

I have never seen this much plastic on a dog toy. The wings and stripes are all made out of thin, flexible vinyl. Those bits of vinyl are sewn on via bulky turned-under seams.

Photo by Erin Koski

So the vinyl is basically designed to be ripped off by all but the most gentle dogs. I don't think I could come up with a more irresistibly shreddable design if I tried.

Our Silly Bums bee also crinkles. Brisbane hates crinkle toys. Ru finds them distasteful. Conveniently, foster dog Xena is both incredibly gentle with toys and loves crinkly things. It's hers now. When she finds a home, it will be leaving with her.

Pros: It squeaks. Someone must find this concept to be cute or funny, given that Silly Bums made it past product development and into actual stores without anyone going "hold on a second, this idea is actually kind of stupid."

Cons: Crinkles. Easily-destroyed vinyl is a questionable material for use on a dog toy, I would worry about intestinal obstruction if any of my dogs started to chew it. Butts aren't really that funny once you're out of middle school.

Bottom Line: One of my least favorite things we've ever received in a BarkBox. At least Xena likes it. If she suddenly develops an interest in shredding toys, it's going straight into the garbage.

The May Not-Actually-Allergy-Friendly BarkBox

Our May BarkBox arrived on Wednesday, and it was filled with disappointment. Seriously, they could have sent an empty box and I'd have felt about the same when I opened it. Brisbane knows that BarkBoxes contain all sorts of wonders, so this box was a huge disappointment for him as well. "What's in here for you, Briz? It's...nothing. Actually there's nothing in here for you. Sorry. Nevermind."

The allergy-friendly BarkBox is not supposed to contain any chicken, turkey, beef, gluten, wheat, corn, or soy. Brisbane is allergic to chicken, turkey, duck, and eggs. Sometimes we get a food item with duck or eggs, but mostly we get treats with rabbit, venison, lamb, peanut butter, or fish. I can either swap out the allergen-containing treats using the Scout's Honor program, or I can swap out an awful crinkly toy instead. Brisbane and Ru really don't like toys that make crinkling noises, especially not loud ones.

Our BarkBox this month contained a bag of Nootie No Grainers Jerky BBQ Chicken treats. Wtf?

We also got an Etta Says turkey stick. Did BarkBox send us the wrong box? Did they stop offering allergy-friendly boxes without telling me so I could cancel my subscription?

There is a West Paw Designs Bumi tug toy, which looks cool and is very sturdy. Too bad Briz doesn't care for it. He had a Hurley toy by the same company when he was a pup, and I could  never convince him that it was any fun either.

The last thing in here is a R2P Pets Silly Bums bee butt. I am familiar with the Silly Bums toys, and frankly I think they're kind of stupid. They're not cute, they're not silly, they're just half a stuffy. All the ones I've seen before were just regular crinkly stuffies this, this one is something else entirely. It is majorly crinkly, the loudest crinkle toy I think I've ever seen. It also has a whole lot of plastic on it, the wings and the stripes are sewn-on vinyl. I'm not convinced that's safe, and am not completely convinced this is actually a toy intended for dogs. The number of accessible seams on it make it incredibly vulnerable to being shredded, it's just begging to be ripped apart.

So this is literally an entire box of stuff I will have to give away. I emailed BarkBox to ask why we got a box of poultry, with the plan to cancel my subscription and ask for a refund for this month if they discontinued the allergy-friendly boxes without telling me. I noticed on their Facebook page that quite a few people with 'special' boxes got regular boxes instead. Apparently there is an extra toy option for multi-dog households, and a tough toys only option for destructo-dogs. The flood of complaints appears to be limited to this month, and our box was sent out a day late so I'm pretty sure something unusual happened at BarkBox this month.

Last year I emailed them in order to cancel my subscription after receiving nothing but chicken-based treats for three months in a row. Our June 2014 box contained chicken treats and lame toys and I decided then that I was done. This time around the response I received was that there was a mistake with the treats for the allergy boxes and that I would receive an email today about how they were going to fix things. As of 9pm Thursday I have received no such email and am seriously considering canceling my subscription. Pretty much nothing they do is going to result in us getting anything for a few weeks, so the response might as well be "Oh well, better luck next month." Not cool, BarkBox. Not cool at all.

Product Review: Sprong Cone and Dome

The Sprong Cone and Dome is a foam-filled squeaky ball with a fuzzy velvet texture. The manufacturer's website doesn't say that Sprong toys float, but the packaging for ours specifically mentioned it. Our Sprong is a large Cone and Dome, there are a dozen different shapes to choose from, and several of those come in different sizes. Sprongs come in a ton of different colors.

Photo by Erin Koski

These things are kind of cool and unique, I haven't found anything with this texture before, and I love the fun shapes. I don't think there are any other toys out there like this. I particularly like the fuzzy velvet texture, I've always found foam-filled smooth latex toys to feel kind of weird. The Sprong has a great squeak, not terribly long or annoying or loud.

Briz isn't totally in love with the Sprong, but he'll play with it if I initiate. We actually have it because Josie picked it out at work. She was a shameless shoplifter, and it was usually easier to just buy the bully stick or rawhide she grabbed rather than pry it out of her mouth. This was the only non-edible toy she ever showed an interest in, so I immediately purchased it. She ignored the Sprong from then on, apparently toys are only fun when they aren't ours.

Sprong toys are made by R2P, Ready2Play. The company actually owns quite a few pet brands, but I've never encountered any of the others before. It's possible I just haven't noticed, I'll be watching for them now because I'm kind of strange like that. There is also a cat line of Sprong toys specifically intended for nighttime play when cats tend to find the most obnoxious object in the house to bat around. For my cats, that thing is a small and extremely resonant piece of metal that fell off a windchime.

Pros: Fun-to-squish texture, firm yet supple. Fuzzy surface reminiscent of those furry My Little Ponies that were such dirt-magnets. Tolerable volume and pitch when squeaked. Lots of fun colors and shapes and sizes. Visually appealing to humans. Pretty darned durable, ours spent several months laying out in the yard in the sun, got peed on, and still scrubbed up quite nicely.

Cons: Probably not super durable for destructo-dogs. Might be more fun for humans than dogs, probably shouldn't leave within reach of toddlers.

Bottom Line: If my dogs loved these we would be swimming in them. I've been very impressed with the one we have. The dogs don't find it nearly as attractive as ratty old tennis balls for some reason. Anyway, I think it looks really cool so it can lay around on the floor with the Mighty Dinosaurs as part of my decor.