Everything for the play-time of a 3.2 kg Yorkie.

Sammy doesn’t need many toys. He needs the right three. After eighteen months of watching him ignore everything I thought he’d love and fixate on the one thing I threw in as an afterthought, I’ve arrived at a reasonably reliable set of rules for what a Yorkshire Terrier will actually play with.

The failure mode is almost always size. A toy built for a ten-kilogram dog becomes an obstacle course for a three-kilogram one. Sammy can’t get purchase on a rope toy designed for a beagle. He loses interest in a squeaker he can’t carry. The toys that work are the ones where he’s in charge of the game.

These departments cover everything from daily enrichment to crate-time companions. The puzzle section is worth reading if your Yorkie tends to bark at nothing — boredom is almost always the cause, and five minutes with the right toy resolves it faster than any training session I’ve tried.