Most toys that cross Foxie’s path rarely last. Rope toys are torn to shreds. Squeaky ones fall silent in her paws. Stuffies lose their eyes and ears once Foxie’s 12-pound frame gets hold of them.

But when Andy Batdorf and his partner gave their senior Yorkie-Maltese mix a soft, miniature lamb wearing a birthday hat, Foxie was different. She played with the squeaky toy gently and even wanted to carry it outside on a walk. Batdorf recalled wondering whether Foxie’s tenderness toward Lamb Chop was because they looked similar — both white and fluffy.

“Her maternal instincts kicked in,” Batdorf, 35, said. “She treats it like her own little pup.”

One of the hottest dog toys in America is a squeaky stuffed animal toy named Lamb Chop. On the surface it doesn’t look unique, but it has taken a mysteriously strong hold on the country’s dogs and their owners: Millions are sold annually, and it is consistently one of the top-selling toys on Chewy, Petco and Amazon, where listings get thousands of rave reviews.

Dog owners throw Lamb Chop-themed parties and photo shoots. They dress their dogs as Lamb Chop for Halloween and buy them Lamb Chop beds to sleep in alongside dozens of their Lambys, as they are affectionately called. One dog owner even has a commissioned painting of his dog walking through a forest with Lamb Chop. The dogs, from rat terriers to Rottweilers, seem to be equally enthralled.

“There definitely does seem to be some kind of bond that I can’t really explain,” Batdorf said, adding that Foxie’s Lamby remained intact, remarkably, more than a year later.

The roots of its popularity date back decades.

Shari Lewis, a ventriloquist and entertainer, introduced an inquisitive puppet with a mop of curly hair named Lamb Chop in the ’50s and featured it on “The Shari Lewis Show” from 1960 to 1963. Then in the ’90s, Lewis brought the puppet to a new generation with “Lamb Chop’s Play-Along” on PBS. Lewis won Emmys and received acclaim for episodes about topics including bullying and how to stop biting your nails.

The puppet had already inspired a children’s toy when, in 2010, the pet product company Multipet International Inc. brought Lamb Chop to the dog toy market in the form of a 10-inch-tall toy with five squeakers. Lamb Chop was a runaway hit. Demand surged in just a few years, and the company started producing a 6-inch mini Lamb Chop and a jumbo, 24-inch Lamb Chop, as well as introducing seasonal editions.

“Every day we’re like, ‘What’s the next Lamb Chop?’” said Dean Hirschberg, vice president of marketing at Multipet. “That’s what we think about 24/7.”

The toy’s design, price (typically retailing under $5 for the mini to under $20 for the jumbo) and variety help keep Lamby-mania alive.

If you name an occasion, there’s likely a Lamb Chop toy celebrating it. Alexandrine Higuera estimates that her terrier-poodle mix Troy has more than 20 Lamb Chops, from a Halloween Lamby to his favorite, Independence Day Lamby.

“Any holiday you can think of, they’ll make a Lamb Chop, and then we just get it for him,” Higuera, 29, said.

But much of it is owners’ nostalgia for the Lamb Chop of their childhoods.

Some 32% of dog owners are millennials, beating out other generations in dog ownership, according to the American Pet Products Association. Many of them watched Lamb Chop growing up in the early ’90s.

Mia Christopher has a Lamb Chop zone in her living room — with more than 60 of the toys piled up for her dog Daisy, a three-legged senior rescue who dives into the pile each day.

Christopher, who still has her Lamb Chop dolls from childhood, recently threw Daisy a Lamb Chop-themed “gotcha day party” to celebrate her adoption two years ago. There was a Lamb Chop cake, cups and a vintage tablecloth. Daisy wore a Lamb Chop harness and collar, while her sister, Dot, another senior rescue, wore a denim vest with Lamb Chop detailing and patches. A friend’s child dressed up as Lamb Chop to surprise the canine guests, some of whom wore their own Lamb Chop apparel.

“Wait, did I just totally subconsciously throw my inner 6-year-old their dream birthday party?” Christopher, 36, said. “I’m just someone who loves ephemera and things from my childhood. It’s fun to be able to share that.”

Shannon Ritter said her golden retriever Charles had no shortage of favorite toys — his stuffed blueberry or the soccer balls he chased, for example.

But when Charles became sick last November, it was Lamby he took to each veterinary and specialist appointment.

“It was always the Lamb Chop that he went for,” Ritter, 56, said. “It was the Lamb Chop he wanted at the end.”

When the Ritter family had to make the difficult decision to put Charles to sleep, they put him to rest with his cherished toy, which he held onto in his final moments.

“It was very emotional, but it made me feel a little bit better,” Ritter said, “knowing he had Lamb Chop with him.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Alexandra E. Petri
c. 2024 The New York Times Company