Fisher-Price Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name Retriever

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Fisher-Price Puppy Grows & Knows Your Name Retriever

Fisher Price Product Details

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List Price:
~~$54.99~~
Sales Rank: 6746
Fisher Price
Released: 2007-08-01

Avg. Customer Review:
Media: Toy
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Product Features

Fisher-Price Puppy Grows & Knows Your Name Retriever

Puppy Grows & Knows Your Name is an electronic mechanized plush dog. Puppy is at his smallest size when the child brings him home and over one week puppy will grow to full size.
The child can personalize puppy and as puppy grows he will learn to speak, learn his own name, the child?s name and more.
Puppy is personalized using the software on the included CD-ROM. Areas of personalization are: child?s name, dog?s name, friend?s name, favorite place to go with puppy, two activities to do with puppy, child?s birthday. Included accessories: bone, brush a

Product Review

Product Description

Give this adorable puppy lots of tender loving care, and he'll grow to his full size within one week. This plush pooch is at his smallest size when you bring him home, and over the course of the week, he flourishes under your care.

As your puppy grows, he will learn to speak, learn his own name, your name, your birthday and your friend's name. He'll even pick out his favorite spots to visit, along with a couple of favorite activities. Puppy can be reset to a small size so you can watch him grow again and again. Includes personalization software, plus bone, brush and puppy toy. Requires 4 "AA" batteries, included. Measures 14"L x 8"W x 12"H.
Amazon.com Review

Getting to know a new friend is fun with the Puppy Grows & Knows Your Name Poodle from Fisher-Price. This interactive toy puppy comes complete with curly white hair, a pink plastic collar, a bone-shaped treat, and a brush. More than that, the puppy actually "grows" over time, and it can be programmed to know your child's name and it's own name (which you pick). With this puppy, children 18 months and up can enjoy having an interactive pet all their own.

What We Think

Fun Factor:

Durability:

(what this means)

The Good: Puppy really grows and "learns" new sayings

The Bad: Hard body isn't padded beneath the soft fur

In a Nutshell: Kids are sure to love having a pet that calls them by name

At a Glance
Ages: 18 months and older
Requires: Windows PC with a CD drive and USB port

Puppy is smallest when you first open the box. (Poodle version shown) View larger.

In four days, puppy is fully grown. (Poodle version shown) View Larger.

Cute, Cuddly, and Easy-to-Program
Before your child adopts this puppy, an adult will need to program the puppy and make sure that four AA batteries are installed. Programming is fast and easy. Simply insert the included CD in your computer's CD-ROM drive, follow the directions to complete installation, and open the user-friendly application. This lets you select your child's name, check the pronunciation, pick a name for your puppy, and upload the data to your puppy using the included USB cable.

Now "Pickles," "Snowball," or "Chi Chi" is ready to meet your child. The first time we touched her back, our puppy wagged her tail and said, "Hi, Tony. How are you? I'm feeling happy today." A few seconds later, she said, "Let's play, Tony." Try sticking the bone in her mouth to hear crunching sounds, or petting her soft fur.

Have Fun Charting Puppy's Growth
Puppy has more to offer than just fun, interactive movements and sayings. Over the course of four days, this puppy actually "grows." Watching the puppy get taller right in front of our eyes quickly won us over. And, unlike a real dog, Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name can go back to being a puppy, so you and your child can watch the growth cycle all over again. Our puppy didn't come with a set of instructions, so we had to figure out her pattern of growth on our own.

The included chart helps kids measure and track the growth of their puppy. Plus, puppy has something new to say each of the four days, which makes it seem like she really is learning as she grows. Part of this learning process includes singing two songs that feature your child's name, which are sure to delight little pet owners.

This puppy is recommended for children as young as 18 months, but younger children, who are sure to love the way puppy speaks right to them, may not be as interested in measuring growth and watching puppy mature. Plus, since Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name is battery powered, she has a hard body underneath her furry coat. We felt that a little more padding would make this her a much more huggable friend.

While the programming CD requires a system running Windows 2000, XP, Vista or higher, the puppy can still be fun even if you use a Mac or don't have a computer. Without programming, the poodle simply calls itself "Puppy" and your child "Friend." And even though a wide variety of names, including David, Geronimo, Sharif, and Zelda, appear in the list of names your puppy recognizes, if your child has a very unusual name, you may not be able to "teach" it to the puppy. Setting the puppy to speak to a "Friend" or "Buddy" instead of using a single name can also be an excellent solution for children who share their puppy with siblings.

Overall, Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name is a great pick for children who love dogs but can't have a live puppy of their own. She's sure to inspire lots of creative interaction, and parents are sure to appreciate that they don't get stuck walking the dog, buying food, and picking up messes.

What's in the Box
Puppy, bone, brush, tape measure, growth chart, birth certificate, 4 AA batteries, USB cable, and programming CD.

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Product Details

Fisher-Price Puppy Grows & Knows Your Name Retriever

Toy: 0 pages (2007-08-01)
Publisher: Fisher Price
Label: Fisher Price
Studio: Fisher Price
Manufacturers Age: 3 years and up
Average Customer Review: based on 18 reviews
Sales Rank in Toys: #6746

Customer Reviews

Avg. Customer Review:

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Summary: Highly recommend 2008-08-14
Comment: This toy is great. My 7 year old wanted one forever and we finally got it for her birthday. The dog grows in 3 to 4 stages, then after being played with awhile shrinks back down and starts again. You program in your child's name and the dog's name and it talks to them using that information. Durability rating is for the brush and bone it comes with (and requests). Don't know what happens if you lose them. Very cute. She really hasn't put it down.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Summary: Great toy! 2008-03-17
Comment: I bought this dog for my daughter's 5th birthday. She LOVES it!! She has had it over a month and still plays with it everyday. I had read the reviews on Amazon before ordering so I knew it didn't have the cable needed. I also called FP to make sure my daughter's name was on the list. We have not had any problems with this toy!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Summary: Puppy grows but Can't Learn New Tricks 2008-02-03
Comment: I bought this toy a month before Christmas because I had read that it needed to be programmed and I wanted to do it in advance so it would work correctly when it was opened. There was lots of misinformation about the "Knows your Name" feature. I thought you could play the names in the store. This is not true. I had downloaded the manual and so I called the customer service number to ask if the dog "knew" my daughter's name. I spelled the name and pronon-unced it. The man assured me that it was on the list of over 3000 names the dog "knew" so I bought it.

Later, when I tried to program it I found out that my daughter's name "Olena" was not on the list. I called customer service to find out if the name coud be added and downloaded. This service is available for the Elmo and Dora Know Your Name toys, which sells for $15-$20 but not for Puppy Knows Your Name (and also Grows) for $40-$60. This is definitely a weak point, because that is part of the advertised appeal of the toy. I found a name that was similar and told my child that the dog had an "accent" but children are very attuned to names and she complains regularly "When will the dog learn to say my name?" However, it basically stopped another type of bickering when her older sister plays with the dog. It only belongs to one name. I rate this as good.

It also knows its own name, chosen by my daughter, which fortunately was on the list of names. It doesn't liearn anything else, unlike Elmo, Dora and other toys in this line.

Now for the other features. Does it grow? Yes, it grows every day, then it shrinks back down to the original size. My children were delighted by this feature.

The dog is not a plush toy. It is hard plastic covered with a loose stretchy fabric. I chose the retriever because the brown color looked like it would hide dirt more than the poodle, which is white. The tail looks like it could break if it fell from a height, but after six weeks the toy is still in good shape. It has grown and shrunk at least twice.

I put new batteries in it before I gave it to my daughter because the toy was in the store available to "Try Me". Week batteries apparently slow down the growth. It is still on the same batteries after six weeks which I rate as good.

The songs it sings are catchy and my girls sing along. It wags its tail and looks cute. It doesn't move around. I rate all of these as good features.

Overall this would a highly rated toy if I didn't have a problem with the dog "knowing" my daughter's name. I rate Fisher-Price/Mattel customer service at zero for giving me wrong information about this. The same customer service rep assured me that I could call Customer Service and add a name if it wasn't on the list, allthough he said this could take a month or more. "Knows Your Name" is part of the name of the toy. This add-a-name feature is only available for the Elmo and Dora dolls.

This is really a big mistake on the part of Mattel. The fact that the toy incorporates the child's name really personalizes the toy. If it also had some other customizable sentences this would be aa real winner.

As it is, my six and nine year-old daughters like it. It's cute. If you are sure your child's name is on the CD they will probably like it.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Summary: Puppy Grows 2008-01-18
Comment: The dog is nice but you can hardly notice it grows unless you measure it every day. That's where its educational value comes into play as it teaches children about measurement.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Summary: You MUST change the demo batteries! 2008-01-11
Comment: We got two, one for each of our daughters. One was growing, one wasn't but there was no indication that anything was wrong with the it - it sang, interacted when petted etc. It only sang the song associated with it's puppy stage...

Like somebody below noticed - it's internal clock must slow down with low batteries! On a whim I changed the batteries and the next day it grew up and it established the same cycle. The manufacturer should include a spare set of batteries and recommend replacement of the demo ones ASAP in order for growing cycles to work properly.

Oh, and both girls loved them!

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Fisher-Price Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name Retriever

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