After I wrote my last blog, I started thinking about the types of gifts that would be best for our pets. Of course, crunchy cookies with healthy ingredients are better for us as well as for our pets. I haven't met a cat that doesn't enjoy a little catnip from time to time. And the best kinds of toys are stuffed ones without eyes or other glued on features that could easily be chewed off and swallowed. That is the most important thing to remember, any kind of toy you give your pet, especially dogs, will end up with body parts missing and chewed off.
Jacqs, Jim's dog, is notorious for chewing parts off the toys. She will take a toy she wants to work on and run off into another room with it and secretly (sneakily is more like it) start working on an ear or a tail of the selected toy. When she disappears like that, I always know what she is up to and go looking for the innocent toy, which is usually one of Meko's favorite toys. In that case, I recommend most kinds of bones.
Now, about bones, my girls, toy breeds, have had problems with a variety of bones over the years. Our Sammy, a little bigger Pomeranian, got a piece of bone stuck in her esophagus and had to be rushed to emergency in Boston when everything she was eating kept coming up. She survived fine but the vet recommended we not give her anything smaller than our thigh bone. In other words, when it starts getting too small, throw it out. They have had trouble with a long piece of flip chew getting stuck and not being able to swallow it. Fortunately we were able to pull it out of their throats and save them from choking. But that eliminated flip chews. And then there are the Greenies, seemingly harmless chews but our little Pom that we lost last year, Binka, had problems with this chew and threw up a couple of times. We eliminated those bones, also. They have been fine with the white Dingo Dentatreats but I always stay with them while my two girls are eating them and when they get quite small, I take them away. They are made of a wheat gluten, granted, not the most nutritious thing for your dog to eat but I give them sparingly (made one every other month) and they enjoy having something to do. I still prefer crunchy bones with good ingredients and Mother Hubbard are my favorites - fortunately my girls like them, too.
My friend has a Ragdoll cat that loves the Cat's Meow toy. Something that resembles a mouse moves back and forth, erratically, under a cloth on the floor and the cat attacks it. Hours of fun for your cat.
I think the best advice I can give when purchasing presents for your pets is to think about their health and what could possibly harm them in a worst case scenario. Although I don't like to think about the worst that could happen, when it comes to your pets, since they can be so unpredictable, it is best to be prepared.