Tough Guys Talking Plush Dog Toys

Written by Shannon Weidemann


Recently Camille Tapp with Alpha Pet Products sent me a Billyrepparttar Duck Tough Guys Talking Plush Toy. My dog Kelly can be a destroyer of plush toys, ripping them apart and pullingrepparttar 145899 stuffing out, so I was unsure how long this toy would last.

Billyrepparttar 145900 Duck is dressed in a suit with bow tie and smoking a cigar. To further enhancerepparttar 145901 tough guy image he says “Do you think I’m funny? What am I, a clown?” when squeezed. Casino Cat, Dapper Dog, Stogie, and Lyin’ Lion are also available, each with a unique phrase. They are all around 11 inches tall.

Kelly was super excited whenrepparttar 145902 box arrived. It had been packaged with some Buddy Biscuits Liver Treats andrepparttar 145903 box must have smelt very good. I gotrepparttar 145904 toy out ofrepparttar 145905 box, tossed it and away she went. She smelledrepparttar 145906 toy all over and then picked it up. She was able to getrepparttar 145907 toy to “talk” just by biting it. The first time it spoke, she dropped it. Then she quickly picked it back up again and bit it to make it speak again and again.

Feeding Your Pet Stingray - The Essentials of Maintaining a Varied Diet

Written by Brendon Turner


Stingrays will eat a wide variety of foods. Maintaining a varied diet is extremely important in captive animals, as monocultural diets incur a risk of nutritional deficiencies. Stingrays are very active, and should be fed at least once a day, preferably twice or even three times daily. The daily diet can be varied in order to create some environmental enrichment as well as balanced nutrition forrepparttar rays.

First Foods

First foods for newly acquired rays should be blackworms or tubifex worms. These foods seem to berepparttar 145707 most readily accepted, and are small enough to be inadvertently ingested either by mouth or throughrepparttar 145708 spiracle, thereby givingrepparttar 145709 ray an opportunity to taste these possibly unfamiliar foods by chance. Foods that have been used for very small specimens, such asrepparttar 145710 teacup rays, are small insect larvae such as mosquito larvae, small shrimp known as ghost shrimp or glass shrimp, live adult brine shrimp, and blackworms. Chitinous foods such as shrimp provide less nutritional value than do soft-bodied foods, and so should not be used as sole food items.

The best way to be certain that your new stingray is feeding is to watchrepparttar 145711 spiracles asrepparttar 145712 ray passes over food onrepparttar 145713 bottom ofrepparttar 145714 tank. If it is eating, you will seerepparttar 145715 spiracles opening and closing rapidly, or fluttering, asrepparttar 145716 food is ingested and water is passed fromrepparttar 145717 mouth and outrepparttar 145718 spiracles. Once you observe a newly acquired ray readily feeding on black-worms or redworms introduce finely chopped night crawlers in small quantities. Once stingrays recognize these as food, most will readily eat them. Later, experiment with other types of food.

Types of Food

Live Foods

Feed live foods, including blackworms or tubifex worms, in quantities adequate to allow a small amount to be left inrepparttar 145719 tank sorepparttar 145720 rays can browse later. However, when cleaningrepparttar 145721 substrate, note whether a significant amount of living worms is present; blackworms and tubifex worms will colonizerepparttar 145722 substrate if not eaten and add torepparttar 145723 nitrogenous waste production inrepparttar 145724 aquarium.

Nonlive, Nonaquatic Foods

Chopped earthworms, redworms, or night crawlers and any nonlive, nonaquatic foods should be fed in smaller quantities to prevent any overlooked food from decomposing inrepparttar 145725 tank. Keep in mind that stingrays have relatively small mouths-a 10-inch (25-cm) ray may have a mouth that is 1/2 to 3/4 inch (13 to 19 mm) wide, so chopped food items must be small enough to be eaten easily. If a ray ingests a piece of food and repeatedly spits it out and ingests it again, this usually indicates thatrepparttar 145726 particle is too large. Some ray species, such as antenna rays, have extremely small mouths relative to their size.

Once acclimated, rays often develop techniques for eating larger pieces of food; for example, newly imported rays may have difficulty consuming even small chopped pieces of night crawlers. Eventually, however, they learn to eat an entire worm by sucking it into their oral cavity without chewing. Newly acquired rays also often ignore feeder goldfish but they quickly learn to chase down and consume feeders, even learning where they hide inrepparttar 145727 tank.

Commercially Prepared Foods

Stingrays may learn to eat other unfamiliar foods such as brine shrimp, pellet foods, or other commercially prepared foods. While there is probably no harm in offering these foods to rays, it is best to use fresh, live, or frozen foods asrepparttar 145728 dietary staple. Although stingrays often do not initially accept frozen or other nonliving foods, they may soon learn to eat these foods after they have been acclimated. A benefit of frozen foods is that they are less likely than live foods to introduce diseases or parasites.

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