Stories Behind What We Carry

And the Little Dog Laughed

A softie is never just a toy — it is a companion for the first big feelings a child ever has.

There is a particular kind of magic that happens when a child decides their rabbit is the teacher, or the doctor, or the smallest customer in an imaginary cafe.

That moment — a small person deep in conversation with a stuffed animal, assigning it a voice, a personality, a bedtime — is not just play. It is the foundation of everything. Symbolic thinking. Language. Empathy. The ability to hold another perspective in your mind and care about it.

And the Little Dog Laughed was built around that understanding. Every softie in the collection is designed in Australia with an exacting attention to detail — the weight of the plush, the expression on the face, the texture of a knitted merino scarf — because the right softie is the one a child reaches for at the end of a long day, tucks under their arm, and carries into every stage of growing up.

When a child talks to a soft toy, they are building language — narrating adventures, quietening their voice for bunny's bedtime, taking on the authoritative voice of a shopkeeper. When they care for a bear who is "a bit nervous about kindy tomorrow," they are rehearsing empathy in the safest possible way, entirely on their own terms. And when the day is over and the world has asked a lot of a small nervous system, a familiar softie is the thing that smells like home.

We carry And the Little Dog Laughed at Lykke Living because we believe the cabin should have a corner for the smallest visitors — and because we know what it means to tuck something into a child's arms that will still be sitting on a shelf in a grown-up bedroom one day, kept because they were never quite ready to let it go.

Not just a toy. A companion for life.