A partnership between Volkswagen and Kong Toys has sparked some generosity. As Volkswagen Duluth went around the Twin Ports to drop off new dog toys to local K-9 units and shelters.

They visited Hermantown Police Department, Duluth Police Department, Superior Police Department, and Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. With each location they handed out several of the Kong Toys, as they started with 75 toys and wanted to gift them all. Volkswagen Duluth also went to Animal Allies to gift them 25 toys for the pets in the shelter.

One of the K-9 handlers, Officer Jeremy O’Connor, spoke about the excitement with the gift of the toys. “All of our K-9s are all toy reward,” he said. “So, when we do a lot of training or if we’re out searching for things, we’re looking for people, things like that, after they’ve done a really good job on the training or the searching, we reward them with a toy”

The toys that were gifted out have a unique history with Volkswagen. Kong was originally the brainchild of a man out in Colorado who had some spare Volkswagen bumpers laying around. What he did was his dog loved chewing on the bumper stop. He found that it was surprisingly resilient, so he reached out to Volkswagen for the specs. Creating the toys that they gifted today.

Toys for the Community

In the spirit of generosity, Volkswagen of Duluth has some toys left over and is offering them to people who visit them with their dog. They have about 30 toys left and want to gift them to the community.

Dylan Isola, with Volkswagen of Duluth, shared their gifting plans. “Anybody that stops in with their four-legged companion and allows us to take a picture to post on social media” He said, “because everybody loves dogs, we actually do have a couple left over here that we will be willing to give away for anybody that brings their four-legged companion up here for us to meet.”