How a chewed-up Frisbee inspired the world's latest fetch toy
The story starts with a boy and his dog.
Ryan Benitez had barely graduated high school when at age 18 he moved out of his parents' house in Indianapolis so he could enjoy his independence.
'I was one of those kids who wanted to be old when I was young,' he explains, 'so I got my own apartment.'
He also got the family dog, a black Labrador retriever named Marley. Ryan's parents were fine with letting Marley go; she was just a puppy, let her chew up stuff in Ryan's apartment instead.
Turned out, it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Marley lived to the age of 15, a big number for a big dog, shepherding Ryan from teenager to full grown adult in the process.
'She went through everything with me, breakups, moves, hard times, good times, she was my rock,' says Ryan, 'best dog ever.'
Ryan and Marley were living in a high-rise apartment in Chicago when Ryan bought a Frisbee and the two of them wore it out in the adjacent park. Marley was great at catching the disc in midair, then chewing on it as she brought it back to Ryan.
Over time, she managed to chew it up until it was a big lump that could no longer get airborne.
Ryan was about to give in and buy a new Frisbee, until he noticed that Marley seemed to have even more fun chasing the misshapen disc when he'd just fling it end-over-end on the ground.
As it hopped and skipped its way across the grass and tree roots, it looked more like a rabbit or a squirrel on the run than a Frisbee.
Not only that, Marley, who was getting on in years and tired more quickly, suddenly found a reservoir of newfound energy.
'Throw a stick or a ball and she'd last a few throws and lose interest,' says Ryan. 'But when I rolled this stupid old chewed up Frisbee she would just go and go and go forever.'
It was at this point Ryan put his inventor hat/business hat on. Ever since graduating from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University he'd harbored notions of inventing something new to sell to the world.
'Typically when I'd come up with ideas I'd quickly shoot them down — this is wrong, this is boring,' he says, 'but I was in love with this idea because it's unique. There's nothing else that does what it does, or is designed this exact way that gives the toy a galloping motion while it's running away from the dog. And that's why dogs want to chase toys in the first place. It's because of the prey drive that's in their DNA. They want to chase something that's running from them.'
In 2018, after Ryan and his wife moved to Utah, he decided to go for it. First he got in touch with a company called Invent-help that engineered the product for him. Next he paid $2,000 for a portion of a booth at a trade show in Las Vegas. That paid off when he met a representative for Allstar Innovations, a company that 'brings innovative solutions to market' (remember the Snuggy? That's the product that got them started). He and Allstar struck a deal; they agreed to produce and distribute the toy, named SquWhirl, and Ryan agreed to a royalty on each unit sold.
The first SquWhirl fetch toys went on the market a year ago in a limited number of Walmart stores, some other retail outlets and on Amazon.
So far, over 100,000 SquWhirls have been sold. That might look like a lot, but Ryan, who hasn't yet quit his day job working for a roofing company, thinks/hopes it could be just the beginning.
From personal experience, he knows all it takes is for a dog lover to fling the toy and they'll get it. And the world is full of dog lovers. (There's a video clip on YouTube where Ryan demonstrates how to throw the SquWhirl.)
'It isn't meant to solve world hunger; it's a fetch toy,' says Ryan, 'but it's a lot of fun to throw. And because it's really fun to throw you're going to do it more often, which will get you outside more with your dog. As a result, your dog's going to get better exercise, and if your dog's in better shape it's going to last longer.'
All this, thanks to Marley.
'She's the one who chewed that frisbee into that shape,' says Ryan. 'She's the one who showed me how much she loved it when I threw it on the ground. As far as I'm concerned she gets all the credit. It's her idea.'
Now he's running with it.
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