Zhu Zhu Puppies review and giveaway!

***And the winner is Jen S.!***

I guess its time for the big ticket items to start hitting the shelves for the holidays. I received our annual preview of the latest ZhuZhu craze the other day, thanks to MomSelect.

This year it is ZhuZhu Puppies! And ZhuZhu Babies and ZhuZhu Fashion, too, but we were sent the Puppies. We received one puppy, one outfit, and the Puppy Car and Meter to test out.

Kiel thought the puppy was so cute. Thor was thinking "puppy? who said puppy?".

The car was the most exciting part.

The outfit was cute, but Noah said it was too girly for him.

It didn't stop him from taking an opportunity to look cute for the camera though.

Here's a little video of the puppy in action, along with a little cat terrorizing action.

My thoughts:

This is definitely cute. Kiel was very excited when we opened it up. Like the other ZhuZhu toys you have to have a very smooth surface for them to run if they are not on a track. We had varied results using the car, especially when trying to get the puppy to go into it himself from the parking setup since it kept getting stuck.

The outfit we received was a little disappointing as it didn't fit very well. The Velcro in the front kept coming undone so then the outfit slid around or came off entirely when the puppy was moving. Kiel took it off because it was frustrating him.

It was definitely entertaining when we just let him run around, especially when the cat was watching.

Noah lost interest pretty quickly (he's 8 1/2). Kiel (3 1/2) played with it on and off most of the afternoon. He played with it in conjunction with his fire station and trucks.

I don't think this is the kind of toy that is going to be used every day. It could be frustrating for kids because it doesn't always work as it is supposed to. My past experience with the pets themselves is that if you push them while the wheels are running you will break the mechanism that turns the wheels. I doubt the puppies are any different.

I sense this is the kind of toy that will get a day or two's use and then will have broken or will lose its excitement. If Santa leaves this under the tree for your kids I imagine they will be pretty excited, but I'd be surprised if it is used much past New Years. Or maybe that is just my kids.

Overall: two MNT thumbs-up for cuteness, one for the fun factor, zero for the likelihood of getting your moneys worth.

That said, I would not pass this up if I received it for free, which I did!

And even better, one of my readers is going to win a Puppy and outfit!

To enter to win your own ZhuZhu Puppy and one outfit all you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post!

Don't forget to include your email address in the comment. I know you have to include it to publish the comment, but unless it is actually within the body of the comment or you have email enabled on your Blogger profile I can't see it.

You have until midnight on Sunday, September 11, 2011 to enter. I'll announce the winner that week. Again, don't forget to leave your email address so I can contact you!

Full disclosure: MomSelect and Cepia, LLC provided me with our ZhuZhu Puppy and accesories . I am not receiving monetary compensation for hosting this giveaway. The opinions in my review are purely my own.