Peace of Mind Organizing

Decluttering dog toys

15 April 2021

Earlier this week, I repeated a post I’d written four years ago about the love my standard poodle, Bix, has for his toys. He gets two new toys every month from BarkBox and he’s also given extra toys by a friend whose dog gets BarkBox for the treats and doesn’t love the toys.

Bix enjoys destuffing and desqueaking some of the toys and then playing with the carcasses. So we rarely threw any toys away. His toys were stored in an overflowing containers.

Here’s a photo. (I have no shame.)

In December 2020, Barry and I bought a new bed, upgrading to a king-sized bed. That started a cascade of events that included carpet cleaning. While the carpet cleaner was there, we decided to clean the carpet of the room where Bix’s toys were stored. So we had to clear them out. I figured it was a perfect opportunity to declutter his toys.

It was a surprisingly fun and easy process. The toys had been moved into the living room, so I just started sorting them there. (I thought Bix would want to help, but it turned out he wasn’t very interested in my efforts.)

I sorted the toys into four categories:

• Those we wanted to keep
• Those we didn’t want to keep (because they weren’t popular with him) but were in pristine shape. Those we set aside to give to friends or save for puppy gifts.
• Those we didn’t want to keep but that had some wear. This category was good enough to donate.
• Those that had been played with so much no one would want them (primarily toy carcasses)

I set aside the gift toys and was delighted to have no problem finding takers. I threw away the trash toys and moved the rest of the toys to a donate area.

Here’s a photo of the abundance of toys we set aside to give to friends:

Bix’s favorite toys are small plush balls. He has peanuts, peas and apples from BarkBox (along with the plush peanut shells, pea pods and apple bushels they came in). In the sorting process we discovered, inside the covered basket pictured above that we rarely opened, a bunch of small plush balls that must have been purchased for one of Bix’s poodle predecessors. Honestly, we had no idea we had them.

Bix was ecstatic about these balls. He squeaked and squeaked and squeaked them. He lolled about on the living room rug with them. Finding them was definitely the highlight of the process.

Once all the sorting was done, I had the pleasure of organizing the toys we decided to keep. I used two containers. One was a plastic laundry basket from IKEA. The other was a Rubbermaid Bento Storage Box that has interior dividers that pop out from each corner. I used two of the divided areas to hold the plush balls, with the rest of the toys in the open area behind, as well as in the laundry basket.

Here’s an after photo.

It’s such a relief to have the big mess of toys gone. And, like most decluttering projects, the best part is that everything is more accessible. Bix now has easy access to his favorite plush balls, which previously would get lost in the pile of toys. And it’s very easy for us to put them away in their designated spot.

I realize that this still looks like a lot of toys. But it feels like the right amount for us!

Tagged with: barkbox, dogs, dog toys

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