I was amazed when I first took these nine dog figurines out of their box, because I had never seen such fine attention to detail before!  These dogs looked so real, down to their colored pads on the bottom of their paws and the subtle color changes in their coats.

I was next surprised at how lightweight these little guys were, since they just had the appearance of being heavy.  Schleich makes their figurines out of a plastic material, so they are as durable as they are beautiful.  Riley immediately took to her new "woof woofs" and started playing with them without delay.

I watched her intently for about 20 minutes playing with her Schleich dogs!  She hardly looked up, for she was busy barking, inspecting the dogs, walking them across the table and the floor, and making the dogs all kiss each other.  Of course, the cute thing is she had to give them all kisses too!  She tried introducing our dog, Noel, to her nine new canine friends, but of course Noel wanted nothing to do with that!

The Schleich dog figurines came in all shapes and sizes, from very small in the case of the pug figurines, to the larger ones like the German Shepherd and Husky.  Riley seemed to prefer the larger dogs, but I'm sure that is just because she can grip them easier.  I started browsing through the Schleich catalog and discovered that they make a wide variety of lifelike figurines in three main categories:

• World of Nature, which includes wild life and farm life
• World of History, which includes prehistoric animals, knights and American Indians
• Bayala, which includes mythical creatures such as dragons, fairies, unicorns, etc.

They even have a collection dedicated to the Smurfs!  What's also neat is that the Schleich website serves to educate as well.  If you look up any of their figurines, you will find a short description filled with interesting information and fun facts.  I wish I knew about these figurines when I was teaching Life Science.  I would have loved to have these models available to my students.

Schleich has truly created some high-quality, durable, beautiful and lifelike figurines!  Any child would love to play with these figurines and any avid collector would love to display them proudly.  I only wish Schleich created an entire line of holiday figurines, for I would buy them out!  These figurines are so intricate and detailed, yet because they are made of plastic, they can't break.  Now, those are the kind of imaginative toys that I love Riley playing with!