Dog Tug Toy

I've made a lot of these tug toys over the years for my dogs, the ball end of the toy provides something for the dog to bite onto and the the handle gives you something to hold. They also make a great throw toy as the monkey fist is designed for throwing.

Please be a little careful as the monkey fist knot on the ball end is quite hard and you don't want to accidentally hurt your dogo.

• Doggo
• Natural Rope
• Rubber Ball
• Tape
• Marline Spike
• Scissors

Using the rubber ball (I used a squash ball since I have small dogs) make a monkey fist knot with the rope. Be sure to use a natural fibre rope rather than a plastic rope. When tying the knot make sure to leave a length of rope about 20cm on the end.

I'm not going to go super deep on how to tie a monkey fist knot as there are loads of really good videos on this, so I'll just cover this from a high level and link to a really good video.

Great Monkey Fist Video - "The Weavers of Eternity Paracord"

Splicing is a super handy skill to have and I kind of enjoy splicing rope, well unless I have lots to do then I get sick of it. I won't go into all the details of how to splice, just the basics.

Start by opening up the short end of the rope and tying off the ends with some tape so it won't unravel. Then using a marline spike open up the other length of rope and start to weave (splice) the other end through the rope until you've completed a few inches. Now using scissors or a sharp knife trim the ends off.

Now fold a loop in the rope for the handle and use some tape to mark where your splice will start, the tape will also prevent the rope from unravelling in the wrong direction when you first start the splice.

Once again tape off the ends of the rope and unwind them about 20cm. You can then use a marline spike to open the rope where you want to close the handle loop.

Now you just need to work the splice down the rope like we did at the other end.

Once again trim the ends of the rope off and remove the tape, you are finished at this stage.

The last and most important step is to kindly ask your dog to run some quality control tests on their new toy.