If you’ve ever found yourself wondering "why do dog toys squeak" and what it is about that noise that delights your dog so much, then you’re in the right place because we’re about to delve deep to find the answers to both of those questions.
One of the best dog toys on the market comes packed with a mammoth 12 squeakers and many of our other favorites contain them too, so clearly all that noise serves a purpose but where is it coming from?
For those of you that used to love blowing on whistles when you were a kid, you’ve probably already guessed that toy manufacturers use mini versions of these inside their squeaky toys. When your dog starts getting stuck into their favorite chew toy the pressure of their jaw forces air to move through the squeaker, causing it to omit that high-pitched noise that so many of our dogs go nuts for.
If your canine companion has several squeaky toys, you may have noticed that the noise that comes from each can vary. That’s because the size of the squeaker that has been placed in the dog toy can make both the duration and the loudness of the squeak different from toy to toy. Some are also designed to create noise, both when the air is pushed out of them and when the air rushes back in as they regain their shape.
Why does your dog love their squeaky toy so much?
Some dogs are squeaker seekers who just can’t get enough of their beloved noisemakers, and it turns out there might be several reasons why.
Your dog carries a natural killer instinct that has been handed down to them from their wolf descendants and that squeaky noise is similar to the sound that frightened prey make when they’re being hunted.
While we don’t want to get overly graphic here, if you’ve ever noticed your dog swinging its head and their squeaky toy back and forth while they’re playing with it, that’s likely because the noise from the toy is tapping into the natural way they’d kill their prey in the wild. When the whistle in the toy stops squeaking, it signals to your furkid that they’ve ‘killed’ their prey and can stop attacking.
There’s another driving force behind your dog’s love of their squeaky toy and that’s the instant gratification it provides. When a dog bites down on a toy and hears a squeak, the pleasure center in their brain lights up and lets them know that their bite is effective. Your dog quickly learns that when they bite hard enough on a toy with a squeaker, a sound is emitted, which feels like a reward.
Like the best rope dog toys, squeaky toys are also a lot of fun and can provide mental and physical stimulation, ward off boredom, and stimulate your canine companion’s natural prey drive.
Well, now that we’ve solved the mystery of why do dog toys squeak, it’s time to give you a sneak peek at a few of our favorites…
