Michelle sent me this link and wondered if I wanted to make one while visiting. Since the temperature high was in the low 20's and low was wind-chill-minus-20-something I thought that seemed like a great idea. That and the fact that the little misses at my house always need a few sources of entertainment. Gertie has very sensitive feet and doesn't care for the snow, and neither of them should be bored since they come up with ways to entertain themselves. This thing seemed like a win win. Michelle's dog is a Boxer, her grandpup is a Dachshund and Gertie and Gladys are small Beagles so we each made different versions of the stick and I think have play more so in mind than training. But training is actually something I'm going to put on my radar. We went to Home Depot for the supplies. Twice. And managed to have some fun in both stores. We even got scolded. Ha. Ha. Apparently, me trying to slip a dangle of rope hanging 10 feet over my head into a 1/2 inch round PVC pipe to see if it fit constitutes me trying to hit people with a stick while my partner was filming me. Granted, I was laughing, I'm sure it looked ridiculous (it did, I saw the video) she was filming, and anyone coming down the aisle could've been in danger...but it was all legit. And when we explained what we were doing we even made a "friend" (Kinda. He was a wee bit starchy, if you know what I mean.)
Of course the rope we got was "wrong" according to her husband.
But I digress. We went with 1/2" PVC because the 3/4" called for in the recipe was HEAVY. However, if you want an upper body work out, go for it. Michelle made hers long, slightly less than 6 feet. I cut mine down to 3 1/2 feet because I'm clumsy. Seriously. I have enough trouble just walking sometimes. Arthur's was 2 feet.
I chose to have double 1/4" nylon (that's the proper one, see above) because I wanted to be able to tie the toy on. And since I'll be watching the entire play time I'm not super concerned about the dangling rope. This also lets me tie it high or low on the end of the rope. And of course we found cute duct tape at Michael's. The toy was clearance at Petsmart, a real bargain if you don't consider that I also bought some other clearance items. 
All told, without the other "deals" factored in and with the rope oops we spent less than $10.00 each. Gertie and Gladys, once they got over the barking at the stick, began enjoying the heck out of it. And it's no longer a Christmas toy since the Santa hat was ripped off the head of the two squeakered muskrat/squirrel/beaver thing.I'll share a video tomorrow. Consider yourself warned.
