Puppy Surprise Problems

I had such a fun time with my Kitty Surprise cat, Snow, that I decided to buy one of the new Puppy Surprise toys, too.  I was especially interested to see the dalmatian character, "Gigi," because she is advertised as having two "magic" babies with eyes that can change from open to closed with the application of cold water.  That sounded fun and intriguing to me...even though I was warned that the effect wasn't great.

This will not be a full review of Gigi and her puppies, but just a quick description of this toy and some of the things that were different from what I experienced with Snow and her kittens.  

Two puppies from Puppy Surprise, "Gigi."

I chose Gigi not just because of the magic puppies, but because I like her natural dalmatian coloring.  This is the toy my boys would have picked when they were younger:

On the front of the box, where Snow's packaging simply pondered how many girls and how many boys there would be inside, Gigi's box advertises the presence of two magic babies:

The magic eyes in this picture look very bright and detailed:

Looks impressive.

The back of the box shows the other available dogs and has a short description of Gigi:

 The de-boxing is the same as it was with Snow.  Here's Gigi out of her box:

I like her mismatched ears.

Gigi has a white fur tail and a matching patch of fur on the top of her head.  Some of the fur on her head is contained within a tied bow, but not much of it.  Gigi does not have a fuzzy chest like Snow, though--just a stripe of black fabric that covers her belly and runs up her neck:

My Gigi came out of her box with several faint smudges on her face.  They're hard to see in the pictures, but they make her look dirty in person:

One of the spots that you might be able to see in these pictures is next to the black spot above Gigi's left eye:

Here it is a little closer:

I think these smudges must have been caused by the black fabric on Gigi's ears.  In some places it looks like the black paint from her spots might have run, but the appearance of the puppies makes me more certain that the culprit is the black fabric.

Gigi has teal green oval-shaped eyes with very large dark pupils:

 Ok, let me show you the puppies, because they were the real problem with this set.

Instead of pulling each one out on its own, I just delivered the whole litter in one fell swoop:

Ker-plunk.  Instant litter!

The amazing thing is that I got five babies again!  And they are really, really cute:

This time there was a runt, too.  I was incredibly excited at first, but then I started taking a closer look at the puppies' faces.  I'll show them to you one at a time.

First, here's a little girl with green side-glancing eyes, a black and white body, and pink ears:

The pink ears are a little strange, but otherwise this puppy is great.  I love her long ears and her expression.

The only problem with this little girl is that she's missing some paint on her ears and nose, and her left eye has a very small scuff.  Probably from bumping up against her four siblings!

The second baby is a boy, and once again, he's missing any signs of pink (except for his tiny pink tongue).  His body is all white, but he has a black patch over one eye and around his nose.  Unlike the first puppy, this fellow has short ears.

This puppy always tips forward because of his large head and lightly-stuffed body.  The size of his body seems smaller than some of the other pups, but he's not the runt.

The way this little guy tips forward and gazes up and me is precious, but look at his face:

He has black stains all over his face.  The stains have the chain-like pattern of the knitted stitches in the dogs' fabric bodies, so I suspect these stains come from laying next to one of the puppies with black fabric in their bodies.

He also has a scuff on his right eye.

The next puppy has long black ears and a black back.  She also has side-glancing green eyes:

And...she also has bad staining all over her face:

The staining on this dog runs all of the way under her chin:

The last two puppies are sleeping...and so they are the ones with the "magic" eyes.  The first little girl is normal-sized and has a black belly with a white back.  She has short black ears:

The staining on this one is especially bad, I think.  The rope-like patch down her nose might look cool on its own, but the huge patch on her cheek is just ugly.

Poor little thing.  She looks like a stitched-up zombie dog.

Dreaming of brains...

I immediately got some ice water (mostly ice, little water) to try the magic eye effect.  At first, I couldn't get the eyes to stay open long enough to snap a picture.  They would almost instantly fade away:

But then I figured out that if I held a Q-tip of ice water against the eye for the count of five or ten, the effect would last a little longer:

The eye trick is super-gimmicky, and nowhere near as detailed or colorful as the box would have you believe, but it does actually work for more than three seconds.

The last puppy is the sleeping runt, and she is ridiculously adorable.

She just looks blissfully happy from every angle:

Maybe because her face is free of huge stains?

I had a similar experience with her eyes.  I could get both of them to color for long enough to take a picture...

 

...but then the eyes still looked like this ten minutes later!  

Go to sleep already!

I think she'd be better off as a regular sleeping puppy.  I guess I will have to keep her away from the cold!

So, in summary, here are the two sleeping girls with the gimmicky eyes:

These girls and the little boy all have short ears:

And here are the two puppies with longer ears and black fabric on their backs:

The Stainmakers.

It's a wonderfully diverse pile of puppies:

I do kind-of wish that some of the puppies had eyes looking in the other direction, and I think the pink ears are unnecessary, but on the whole I would completely adore this toy (I like the faces and colors even more than my Kitty Surprise...) except for the unsightly permanent stains on all of the vinyl faces.  

With Puppy Surprise prices soaring on eBay and Amazon right now, I wanted to get this information out there for anyone considering this dalmatian dog.  Perhaps my Gigi is an anomaly (did she get wet? Was it incredibly humid where she came from?), but I fear that the black fabric and close quarters will spell trouble for many of Gigi puppies.  Please let me know if you have a similar--or different--experience! 

Wonderfully cute as these puppies are, this is not the kind of surprise anyone will be happy to see.