OVERVIEW: Pretty Little Pups

Eight out of twelve!

Pretty Little Pups were one of the few toylines that I had several of in childhood. They were release by Multi Toys Corp in 1989 and I managed to get 7 of the 12 in childhood. MTC is better known for the Little Beauties, who I'll do a post on eventually. They were small horses similar to these dogs, only the main lines were made of cheaper plastic. The mini Little Beauties were more like these dogs.

Pretty Little Pups are small dogs of different breeds, maybe a couple inches long at most. Some are in natural colors and some in fantasy colors. Each has a long tail and "mane" of brushable hair. They came with a My Little Pony-style fabric ribbon around their tails, a heart-shaped bowl, a heart-shaped comb, brush and mirror, and a leash with a heart-shaped handle on one end and a little plastic nubbin on the other end that would poke through the loop on each dog's back. The plastic accessories came in pink, purple, yellow or blue. I can't recall if each dog had a specific color, or if you'd see one poodle with pink accessories and another with yellow.

See the leash loop on her back?

The dogs each had a large plastic bow glued to the top of their head. As you can imagine, that didn't hold up over time. You can see in my first photo that two of my childhood ones (the poodle and afghan) are missing their bows, as is the only one I've been able to find for my adult collection, the first one on the left.

I was a big dog fan in childhood thanks to my mom. (I still am, but I don't collect as many dog toys as I did then, although my dogs have an impressive collection of dog toys.) So I always thought the sprigs of "mane" hair were pretty silly. I got out the scissors and tried to make my dogs look a bit more realistic. The only childhood dog to retain both brushable sections of hair is the poodle. Poodles can get away with a lot.

Scotti

These toys were pretty cheap, so I was able to get seven of them. It's much easier to convince the parents to buy a cheapie toy than a Barbie or even a She-Ra. (Though She-Ra was also purchased a lot. I had almost every character.) I have no idea how modern kids do it. Cheap stuff now is nothing like cheap stuff then. I mean, these cost maybe two dollars.

Anyway, I don't remember the exact order of purchase, but I know Scotti was my first one. Yep, even as a kid, I liked black and red.

The only one to keep all her hair.

I'm pretty sure I got the blue terrier next and I know my last one was the Irish Setter. I had a dachshund in childhood, so Doxie was always a favorite of mine, but my main fave was the pink and white poodle.

Sadly, these are ridiculously hard to find now. They often get shoved into My Little Pony lots and while I love these, I don't have the patience to look at every MLP lot to check for tiny dogs. There's one collector out there that has far better luck than me, as she has one of each, I believe. There was a carded one for sale a couple years ago that I lost the auction for, and only a few days ago, a lot turned up that had two of the four I still need, but when I clicked the link, it had sold already. Like seriously? Why can't I catch a break with these? My sole bit of luck collecting these as an adult was getting the speckled purple and white one. I can't remember if that was from a MLPTP member or a random ebay find.

Saved from old ebay auction

One good thing did come out of the carded auction I missed. I saved the backcard and now I know all the dogs that exist and all their names. Some of them have the Captain Obvious names (Doxie, Scotti) while others went for matching starting letters (Peppi the poodle, Trixie the terrier, Alphie the afghan). And then there's Spanky. And Bobo. Sigh.

Check out the hair on Spanky. She had poofy hair like the perfume MLPs. Scotti's was crimped. The others were either straight or sorta curly.

So those are the Pretty Little Pups. You hardly ever see them, but they were little toys I played with for hours when I was young and they'll always have a special place on my shelf.

If you ever see any of the ones I'm missing, let me know! I'd love to add Bobo, Gidget, Puffy (she's actually pink) and Snowball to my collection.

PHOTO CREDITS: All mine except the carded image. I saved that from an ebay auction a couple years ago. If you are the seller and want me to remove it, let me know, or if you let me know a name, I'll add a credit line here. I don't like to use random photos that aren't mine, but with lines like this, there's little choice. If you Google "Pretty Little Pups," the only images that turn up are mine. Or are actual dogs.