I recently received an Etherno training disc made from non-toxic, pet-safe material, that is, FDA approved food-grade silicon. The disc is small, measuring 17.5 cm (which is 6.8”) in diameter and is dishwasher safe. Now, nothing about this frisbee particularly screamed “pick me!” but even in my hands it seemed pretty durable with enough give to roll it up like a taco. At first I wasn’t very sure about how my dog, a 3 year old Border Collie with a passionate love for Frisbees and a penchant for destroying plastic, was going to pick it up as it doesn’t really have a lid/border around the outside.
But the Etherno turned out to be easier for him to pick up than most of his toys and certainly all of his other Frisbees and he came trotting over to me with both it and another toy stuffed in his mouth multiple times (“I just can’t put it down!”). He was able to get it in his mouth easily from surfaces such as grass, carpet, wooden stairs and the couch but for some reason he was unable to pick it up at all from concrete. It does soar like a Frisbee although not quite to the same height or curve as a plastic one (which saved me because I always overshoot with his other discs and toss them right over our fence into the street) and its smaller size allowed my dog to covertly sneak up behind me and drop it into my shorts while I was sitting on the ground- I guess he wasn’t finished with it!
Now there were 2 issues with the disc.
- My dog isn’t a huge slobberer but after less than 60 seconds the silicone material was just soaking with his saliva. Gross- I am not into slobber in ANY way. Luckily it does rinse off quickly in the sink as we don’t own a dishwasher and as fast as he grubbed it up to the point of Salmonella, I don’t think we could possibly wait for a dishwasher cycle, ever.
- I was expecting a long-ish life out of a silicone product because with a normal plastic Petco Frisbee he puts tooth holes in it within a week or so but the Frisbee itself lasts a few months. Tractor Supply’s soft Frisbee (like the Booda Tail-Spin Flyer) was a favourite that made it 6 months and was a family favourite due to the raised rim. Eventually the fabric on it shredded to bits. The Etherno training disc lasted 14 hours before the rim separated around the seam. This totally surprised me because once we passed the tooth test playing outdoors and in, I thought we were in the clear.
Maybe we just got a faulty disc, who knows? But for a dog his size and exuberance I’m not going to replace the Etherno. I would recommend it for puppies due to the size and again, for toothi-ness. If my dog didn’t rip a hole right through the middle in the first 10 minutes I think most puppies would love it and it’s just their size (and easy to clean!)
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