I bought this Boomer Aqua Football as a 10th birthday present for Tess, my border collie. I bought it specially for playing in the sea after discovering (the hard way) that her Kong Frisbee didn't float.

I had wrapped it up in birthday paper for her (yes, she's spoilt!) and she couldn't wait to un-wrap it as it had fairly a strong vanilla scent. Once she'd torn the paper off Tess immediately started gnawing on it so I'm guessing it tasted a bit vanilla-y too!

The same day we took it to the beach to play with and I discovered that the rope makes it really easy for us humans to pick up and throw quite far, even if you "throw like a girl"!

As promised, it floats and because it's bright orange it was easy to spot too.

Both the toy and the rope got very sandy but I still found it easy to throw and I think the rope helped me to not get too much sand up my fingernails. The sand washed straight off of the toy as soon as it got wet again.

I was surprised to see that the toy bounced too! Not very high, about several inches off the ground and just enough for Tess to catch in the air. She has caught her paws in the rope once or twice (without injury) so if you have a smaller dog then I can imagine this would be more of a problem.

Tess really loves this toy and will happily sit and chew on it at home for short periods of time or fetch it from the sea.

So far it seems to be really hard-wearing too; Tess can destroy a tennis ball after 4 throws so for this to have lasted a month is definitely good going. After a dip or two in the sea, it no longer smells of vanilla.

I've not played tug with it as I don't encourage that game with Tess so I don't know how well the rope would hold out.

I paid £3.90 for this toy from ZooPlus.co.uk plus I got a discount by going through my iPoints account.