PRETTY LITTLE PUPS UPGRADES

It's one of those can't sleep kinda nights, so let's do some random posting. 

Today, I got a lot of five Pretty Little Pups in the mail. I have the full set, but some of mine aren't exactly perfect, so when I see them for good prices, I grab upgrades. So let's take a look at my collection in alphabetical order. 

This is Alphie. My childhood one is on the right. Those bows really did not hold up well to being constantly played with and enduring moves. For context, we moved a lot when I was a kid, and my small toys like these were basically crammed into two giant cardboard boxes. They got banged around a lot. 

The upgrade I just got is on the left. Bow intact, even the fabric tail bow. Looking good! 

BOBO! Bobo is my adulthood favorite. She was my most wanted of the handful I still needed up until I got her a few years ago. That one is on the right. She has a weird condition where her paint is very unstable. Like it rubbed off in places after I washed her with soap when I got her. (I usually give my plastic vintage toys a scrub upon arrival.) But I've never had one of these with the paint practically melting off. It's weird. So when I saw the lot I just received and saw the gorgeous Bobo on the right, I had to buy it. Yeah, fully admit that I bought them just for her, but $30 for five is a really good price, too. She's in amazing condition with both plastic and fabric bows. Love her!

Boomer on the left was the last one I got in childhood. She held up fairly well, but the upgrade has all her hair intact. 

Doxie on the right was very well-loved, as my childhood dog was a dachshund. She's still in pretty good shape though. The upgrade has all her hair and, interestingly, a slightly different shade of peach paint. 

Not in bad shape at all, but I need to find this girl with her plastic bow. 

I've probably mentioned before, as I've done several posts on this line, that Peppi was my childhood favorite. She got into a bunch of shenanigans. I loved poodles when I was a kid. 

Someday I'll find an upgrade of this girl. 

Puffy is the weird one of the line. I don't want to say she's my least fave, because I don't have one, but she kinda sticks out by being entirely pink. Most of the others have at least one natural color on them. Doxie I give a little leeway to, because her peach isn't that far off a natural red. I mean, okay, it kinda is, but it's closer to natural than pink. 

Puffy has fab hair though. I'll get an upgrade with the plastic bow someday, but I doubt I'll part with this one because those curls are awesome. 

I'm pretty sure Scotti was my first one. I loved black, even as a kid. I think Trixie and Doxie were next. 

She's due an upgrade for hair reasons, but this one is still super cute. 

I love Snowball, but I feel bad because they did not try hard enough on his eyes. 

Upgrade needed for plastic bow reasons. 

Oh, Spanky. I'm sorry about your stock name and for chopping all your hair off. She had fluffy hair like Snowball's. Someday I'll find an upgrade. 

Speckles on the left was the first I found as an adult collector. Speckles on the right I got recently, because she was an upgrade and she came with the backcard.

Oddly enough, the right one has no speckles!

And finally, Trixie. Upgrade on the left, childhood on the right. 

So I have six of them with good upgrades and six that still need them. The hunt is always on!

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine. 

Pretty Little Pups COMPLETE!

I am overjoyed to finally be able to say I have all twelve Pretty Little Pups. A kind, generous Instagrammer offered me the last one I needed recently, and I spent some time cleaning everyone up before taking these pics. 

So these are some of the first ones I got in childhood. These came out in 1989 and they were pretty cheap, which is why I ended up with so many. 

Peppi, Doxie, Trixie and Scotti. 

SNOWBALL!

There on the left is my newest one. So excited to have him. The other three are my other childhood ones. 

Snowball, Alphie, Boomer and Spanky. (The names. Sigh.)

These are the other four I've acquired in adulthood. 

Speckles on the left I got years ago. Puffy the pink one I got in 2021 and Gidget and Bobo in 2022. 

Speckles, Gidget, Puffy and Bobo. 

I consider my collection complete, even though they're far from pristine. I would love a carded one someday, but that's icing on the cake. 

One more of Snowball, because look at that hair. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine. 

COLLECTION UPDATE: Pretty Little Pups

Bobo, Gidget (x2), Puffy, Speckles, Boomer, Spanky, Alphie, Doxie, Peppi, Trixie, Scotti

I am absolutely thrilled that I was able to add another Pretty Little Pups to my collection! Now I only need one more! 

I only know one other person that collects these and she was kind enough to give me her extra Gidget not long ago. She messaged me with a link to an auction for Bobo and Gidget, and I won! 

These are all my newer ones, all arrived since I moved to this apartment in 2019. 

Bobo on the left is one of my favorites from the entire line. Sadly, she's also in the worst shape. All those dark marks on her are paint rubs. I'm not sure what makes her paint hold up worse than the others' over time. She's still plenty cute though and mostly in good condition. Her curls are excellent. 

Bobo again. So cute.

And this is my second Gidget. If anyone has an extra Snowball, I'd love to trade! Or if anyone else collects these, I would part with her. 

I love these so much. 

COLLECTION UPDATE: Pretty Little Pups

What better place to shoot vintage toys than in front of equally vintage books? Heh. 

I've been meaning to do a couple collection updates on some fun older lines. 

I did an overview on Pretty Little Pups back in 2016:

https://venivididolli.blogspot.com/2016/05/overview-pretty-little-pups.html

So I'm going to leave the main information there and just show some new pictures, as I FINALLY added a new one to my collection!

Okay, not all new pictures. This one isn't actually mine, but I'm not lucky enough to own a carded one of these. I saved this from an ebay auction years ago. 

I wanted to show the twelve dogs with their names, full hair and bows intact, because mine sure don't have those things. Those bows were pretty fragile. 

I am super excited because I have new one! This is Puffy. On the backcard, she looks lighter, but this is her. 

I have photos of her from two different sources. I know one came from a fellow collector, but I can't remember if she was the source of both or not. But the photos show two different dogs. One has her lavender bow and one doesn't. But the odd thing is, both of those Puffys have straight white hair. Mine has very obviously curly hair and some of it is lavender, a color that doesn't tend to fade to white like a lot of light pink hair does. So maybe there are variants? 

These tiny dogs were one of my most played with childhood toys. I absolutely loved them and it shows through their customization and playwear. You can see the old glue from the bows on some of their heads and a lot of them have dust so old that I've never been able to clean it off. 

So these three are Peppi the poodle, Trixie the terrier and Scotti...the scottie.

Then we've got Spanky (ugh, why?) the collie, Alphie the afghan and Doxie the dachshund. 

Newbie Puffy is an unknown breed. Maybe she's a cocker spaniel? 

Speckles I've always thought of as some sort of larger spaniel breed. Her face makes me think of a St. Bernard a tiny bit, but the ears and hair are too long. 

And then Boomer is an Irish Setter. 

I'm so happy to have 9 of the 12 now!

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine except for the backcard photo, which is from a really old ebay auction.

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.