About Us

We make one thing, and we make it calmly

Capybara Plush Pals started with a simple observation: the calmest animal on earth had never been turned into something you could actually carry around. So we did the next best thing. We put the capybara on a bear.

Every piece in the shop is a hand-finished teddy bear wearing a soft, removable capybara hood with a strawberry on top. Some are 30 cm jointed bears that sit on a shelf. Some are 15 cm mini bears on a clasp that live on a bag strap. Some are boxed together as a gift bundle, because people almost never buy just one.

How we build them

  • Jointed, not stiff. Arms, legs and head all turn, so a bear can sit, wave or slump.
  • Hoods come off. The capybara outfit is a separate piece, so one bear can change instead of you buying another bear.
  • Hand-finished. Cut, sewn and checked one at a time, which is why the noses are never identical.
  • Honest sizing. Mini bear 15 cm, jointed bear 30 cm. Two sizes, both measured standing, both drawn to scale on the product page.

Where we are

Our studio is in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, and we ship worldwide. We are slow about almost everything except getting parcels out of the door.

Why capybaras

Because they are the friendliest animal in South America, they sit in hot springs with fruit balanced on their heads, and nobody has ever met one and stayed in a bad mood. A bear in a capybara hood is the same idea, in a size that fits in a bag.

A note on safety

Our bears use fitted safety eyes and the charms have small metal parts, so we recommend them for ages 6 and up. Remove all hang tags before giving one to a child.

How this started

A very slow business plan

In 2023 one of us spent an unreasonable amount of a holiday watching capybaras at a hot spring. They sat in the water. Birds landed on them. A monkey arrived, made itself comfortable, and left again. Nothing was resolved and nobody minded.

We came home wanting to keep that afternoon somewhere. Teddy bears were everywhere; calm was not. So we sewed a small hood with a square nose and small ears, put it on a bear, had six made, gave five away, and the sixth is still on a desk in the workshop with a name badge on it. That one is called Toast. Toast is not for sale.

How they are made

Two workshops, forty-one people

Our bears are cut and sewn in two family-run workshops we have worked with since the first run of six. Both are audited annually, both pay above their regional minimum, and both send us photographs of the first sample of every new hood so we can argue about the nose.

Every bear is jointed and finished by hand, and every safety eye is fitted rather than glued. It is slower, and it is the reason nothing works loose in the first week.

OEKO-TEX Standard 100

Fabric and filling both certified free of harmful substances.

CE and CPSIA tested

Every batch, by an independent lab, with the report on file.

Recycled filling

The stuffing is 100% recycled PET. It is also the reason they wash well.

No plastic in the box

Kraft paper, paper tape, a paper ribbon, and a card. That is the whole list.

What we do not do

No rush, no theatre

This shop will never tell you that eleven other people are looking at the same bear, because we do not know that and neither does anyone else who says it. When a page says three left, that is the number in the box in the workshop. When it says a date, that is a real date.

We keep exactly one standing offer: add any two items and code HUG15 takes 15% off. That is the whole promotion. When everything is discounted, nothing is.

Meet the capybaras