If you’re a dog lover and spend any time on Amazon.com, you might come across the product that I’m reviewing. It’s a “Siberian Husky Dog Marionette Yarn Puppet.”

My grandson used to have a really cute dinosaur marionette that he loved. But he grabbed it one time and it got massively tangled up — and that was the end of marionettes for a while. Now that he’s a little older (he turned 5 in February), I thought it would be fun to try another one. I did a little searching on Amazon and came across pictures of the adorable husky marionette. I paid $18 and some change for this product and was excited for it to be delivered.

A few days later it arrived and, upon taking it out of the box, my first thought was that it was smaller than I expected. If you’ve read reviews of other animal-related products that I have written, you know that I’m pretty careful to check the size of things I order now because, in the past, multiple things I have ordered on Amazon have turned out to be smaller than expected based on what was shown in the picture(s).

Before ordering the marionette, I read a few reviews from customers on Amazon, most of whom seemed to be happy with their purchase, and also looked at a few pictures submitted by reviewers. The dog definitely seemed smaller than it did in the product pictures, about half as small. So I thought I was prepared, but, in person, the dog seemed maybe an inch or so smaller than it had even appeared in buyer’s photos.

My second impression was that the dog has an adorable face in person, just as it did in the pictures on Amazon. I think Husky lovers especially will be drawn to how cute it is.

My grandson was standing right there and I showed him the new marionette, which he immediately wanted to touch. As he did, I realized the body of the dog is made out of what seem to be loose pompoms of yarn. The pictures I had seen had given me the impression that the body would be more like a firm, yarn-covered stuffed animal. The result is that the body of the dog is really delicate. I don’t think it would last very long as a toy for my grandson or for any child. In fact, when I went back and read some of the one-star  reviews on Amazon, which I hadn’t done before, I noticed that someone had written that their children had pretty much destroyed theirs in about an hour.

It is also pretty difficult to make its arms and legs move using the crossbar. With other marionettes I have had, their movement has been much more lifelike and natural with very little manipulation of the crossbar, but sitting and laying down were the only two movements that seemed fairly easy to get this little guy to do. He might work in a puppet show in which a dog plays a small part that mostly involves standing or sitting, but would likely be frustrating to work with beyond that since the legs just kind of hang from bars under the yarn.

I’ve decided that this marionette, which is now hanging in my bedroom will be basically just for display as a cute decorative item.

My overall opinion is that the adorable factor for this marionette is very high, but functionality is lower than expected. Given his size and how fragile he is, I’d say the price of this product should probably be lowered by at least five dollars and marketed more as a decorative item than a plaything.