Barbie Ski Fun - Snowball (1990) - my childhood toy

 After all, after the horses, it's time for the first dog. It has been with me since I was a child, it was my toy. I don't remember when and on what occasion I got it, but my parents bought it for me. After taking it out of the box, I called him - Pinkie - that's because he was wearing a lot of pink color. I loved him, he was more important than the dolls. Because I took him with me everywhere, one day I lost him somewhere. I have already written him off and I have accepted that I will never see him again. His head was torn off, so I assumed, that even if someone found him, probably threw him in the trash. After a few years, it turned out that I left him in my aunt's car. He was lying on the back shelf, so the sun burned him mercilessly there. His head was yellow, he was dirty, but he had his pink sweater on and he came back to me!

Pinkie is a Samoyed dog, he appeared in 1990 in the Winter Ski Fun series, the same to which my dapple grey mare (Ski Fun Blizzard) belongs . His original name is Snowball.

Pinkie's sweater

Snowball vel. Pinkie original equipment included:

• salmon bowl, brush and comb,
• a pink sweater with fringes,
• a pink badge on a silver string that hung around his neck

Unfortunately, apart from the sweater, nothing else has survived to this day. The sweater itself lost some tassels - as I wrote earlier, it was my toy, and my brother's children also played with it.

Pinkie spent the last years in my country house. I brought him to Warsaw this year for a little restoration. His broken, yellowed head underwent retrobrighting, i.e. whitening - he was soaked in various solutions for several days. Below are photos before washing and bleaching.

He underwent several such treatments. I think the photos below were taken after one of the last ones, but not yet final.

Dog's body and head fur before washing:

And finally Pinkie after bleaching and washing. The head wasn't fixed yet.

Pinkie brightened considerably. After washing, his fur turned snow white and soft again. I also managed to comb the tangled fur on the head.

Finally, I fixed his broken neck and recreated his black nose.

Pinkie, in addition to a pink sweater, also has pink eyelids and the inside of the ears.

Its body consists of a plastic "skeleton", but it is not like a real dog skeleton, it is a kind of base. The torso is torsional, similar to the older doll models, allowing the dog to lie with its back legs on its side, as in the photo below.

Plastic legs are attached to the torso, each of them rotates independently around the "joint". The head is made similar to that of Barbie dolls, of a material that looks like a bit harder rubber. The whole thing is covered with fur, the tail has no core inside, each leg and head around the neck are covered with separate pieces of fur. This construction allows the dog to be placed in many poses.

Pinkie was my favorite childhood toy, I used to play with it a lot, its joints are therefore quite loose, which makes it not very stable, you have to work a little to put it on all four legs. In general, for a very "playful" toy, I think that its fur is in pretty good condition. He is now in well-deserved retirement and has become a part of my collection.

Pinky in the snow

YouTube Video