Have you ever wondered how your dog’s favourite Tug-E-Nuff toy was made?
Whether your pup goes crazy for our Crazy Thing or wild for our Wondabaa Bungee, your toy was made with love and care by our talented team in our UK based Workshop.
Together, our small team of machinists make up to 400 Tug-E-Nuff toys every day.
But how are our toys made? What steps are taken before you end up with an irresistible, durable Tug-E-Nuff training toy?
Let us take you behind the scenes to find out…
Creating a prototype
All our toys start off as ideas - usually based on our own experience as professional trainers but sometimes inspired by popular requests from our customers.
We make a number of prototypes for each idea and try them out with our own dogs (luckily, there are more than 25 in the family!).
When we launched in 2009, we made just a handful of different toys. Now we make a range of 40+.
Once we have a confirmed design, the toy goes into production - which is when the real fun begins!
Cutting and prep
We cut and prepare the various elements of each toy in batches before sewing them together.
Depending on demand, one of the team might spend a whole day cutting the fleece for our Crazy Thing or our Big Twizzler!
We also cut to size the bite areas of our real and faux fur tugs, like the Wondabaa Bungee or Rabbit Skin Chaser in big batches.
Our handles are made in bulk too. We aim to make 300 of these a day.
Keeping up with orders
At the start of each week, we plan which toys we will focus on making, depending on stock levels and the orders that have come in.
There are some toys which are consistently popular - and so they are always on our to do list! These include the Sheepskin Chaser, Rabbit Skin Chaser With Squeaker, Pocket Magnet and Bright Fauxtastic.
We have a selection of machinery and sewing machines that help us keep things moving in the workshop.
Our machinists use them to carefully sew together the different prepared components for each toy.
Some toys, though, like the Crazy Thing and our bungee-handled tuggies, need to be finished by hand.
Handmade with love
We also tightly hand-braid tuggies like the Bungee Handled Fleece Tug, which makes them super durable even with really enthusiastic tuggers.
Hand-finishing toys takes a bit longer - but it’s worth it because the toys are superior quality, and that’s one of the reasons our customers come to us time and again.
Once a toy is finished, it has to pass our strict quality control checks.
If it isn’t up to scratch, it gets added to a pile which we regularly donate to dog shelters and other good causes.
If the toy passes the checks, we box them up and send to our US based fulfilment centre, ready to be picked and packed.