Our Story

Welcome to Dog Faced Toys - Toys For Phan's Best Friend!

I discovered Phish as a camper at Camp Northland, a sleep away camp in northern Ontario, not far from my home town of Toronto.  My counsellors would play it all the time and they became my favorite band.  I saw my first show in 2000 at Darien Lake in a crazy rainstorm, but the weather just added to the adventure and I was hooked right away.  Since then I’ve moved to New York and I’ve been to over 150 shows.  Today, my love of live music and the band that started it all for me is something that pervades my entire life.  

In 2016, I got my dog Butters, a Pembroke welsh corgi.  Wanting to share my favorite thing with her, I would always seek out toys that reminded me of Phish.  There was a possum, a circular red chew that looked like a donut, and even a traffic light.  I think she sensed they were my favorites and so they became her favorite toys too. 

Butters testing out their first Donut toys

In 2018, as I had started to become more involved in the broader phish community through people I met on phish twitter and at shows, I had the idea of starting my own phish dog toy company, but didn’t know where to start. 

Butters was super stoked when the packages finally arrived! 

I then met Jeff Goldenberg, originally through Twitter, but then in person at Dicks and then again at Phish Mexico.  He ran a marketing company and when I shared the idea with him, he instantly loved it.  Together we came up with some toys ideas and found a company that could help us make them. Jeff's dog Winston, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, was happy to come along for the ride!

King Charles was happy to have something to chew for Couch Tour!

Today, we are excited to be able to share them with the Phish community to help all the phans out there share something special in their life with their furry best friends.

 Follow Butters on Instagram @sweetbabybutters