Ugly Dog Hunting has always carried a variety of training bumpers. The Avery Hexabumper — an all around “go-to” bumper — comes in a choice of colors all with easy-grab ridges and strong throw ropes. The Avery Perfect Hold also has the Vgrips but adds dumb bell ends to thwart cigar-style holds. Dokken’s classic Dead Fowl Trainers appease handlers’ imaginations with a selection of bird types while teaching young pups the heft of a dead bird. Our inventory has several other smart, purposeful bumpers, but the dogs on staff here have their own ideas.
Assistant Director of Inventory Reclamation, Riviera Rugertoes, announced at the last management meeting that she is tired of picking up bumpers strewn across the headquarters’ property by Shorthair Emeritus Scratch ‘n Sniff. Unfortunately due to his advanced age and daily dose of hallucinogenic medications, Scratch tosses his bumpers aside every time a whiff of tasty rabbit turd assaults his nostrils. He then promptly forgets where he threw them. To fix this, Riv has created the Magnet Mama homing bumper. Shaped like a ball peen hammer, the Magnet Mama contains a patented boomerang magnet system that, if thrown aside, sends itself back to its source with a substantial bonk on the head. Offering him a bottle of buffered aspirin to relieve bonk-induced headaches, Riviera has conned Scratch into beta testing the Magnet Mama and is bribing the local rabbits with bib lettuce and carrot souffle to establish reliable excremental parameters for evaluation of the new product.
On the bumper aesthetics front, our VP of Looking Good While Wrecking Havoc, PDog Fieldsprinter, has demanded glitter studded training bumpers that not only glow in the dark but also squirt beef bouillon on long retrieves. Her rationale is that beauty is only fur deep, and while a bumper can’t counter that by saying it’s got a nice personality, it can redeem its inner value by amusing other senses.
The third bumper in production by Ugly Dog’s staff – clearly designed by committee – is the U Wantit U Fetchit bumper. Cleverly crafted for use by creatures without opposable thumbs, U Wantit U Fetchit is launched by your dog via a mechanized tail catapult (adjustable for those with cropped tails) for you, the handler of all commands, to fetch in a brilliant game of Trading Places. We have had long debates, however, over optional accessories. The beer-seeking sensor was approved immediately given the rationale that humans are more likely to be compliant in a training session if beer is involved. The ecollar electric arc generator intended to furnish payback to heavy-handed trainers is still under review. U Wantit U Fetchit should be on the market by late spring, assuming the Ugly Dog Research and Development team will stop repeatedly binge-watching all eight seasons of Dexter.