One of My Dog’s Favorite Toys
Yorkies love to play. They can be amused with some of the funniest things. We always have our eyes pealed for things that we think will interest him. Well, over time, Jasper has acquired a wide array of toys, and some of his favorites are stuffed animals. He especially likes Beanie Babies. My wife has a little suitcase full of them. Whenever he wears one out, she will pull it down and let him pick out a new one.
Occasionally though, something will grab my eye while I’m out shopping and I’ll have to bring it home, just to see how it rates on Jasper’s excitement meter. Last May, we were out shopping at my favorite place – Walmart. We were in the infant section looking for a shower gift and came across a couple of baby toys that we thought he might like. Well, just as we thought, he liked them a lot. We were a hit in eyes that night. Some of his toys are fun to him, and he plays with them from time to time, but every once in a while a toy is introduced to him that he just can’t get enough of.
That’s how these two toys are to him. One of them is a little stuffed bunny, and he sleeps with it every night. The other toy is a stuffed duck that when squeezed, makes a quacking sound. It didn’t take him long to figure out how to make it work either. For the first few days, all you’d hear around the house is quack – quack – quack! He would drag that thing around with him everywhere. The stuffed duck toy has a little woven rope loop on top of its head. That’s Jaspers favorite part. He likes to hold the toy between his paws and chew on that little rope loop. I like that part too, as it acts as a pretty good dental brush. He will spend a good five to ten minutes gnawing on that little rope.
Imagine, if you will, what this thing looks like after a couple of months, of a dog chewing on a cloth toy. It’s pretty nasty. My wife has thrown it in the washer several times now. Surprisingly, after the first couple of washes the duck still quacked. He is now silent after this last wash. The much favored dog toy was finally put in to the "play with occasionally" pile after he finally gnawed the little rope loop off the top of its head.
Well, I felt pretty sorry for the dog, and the duck, so the search for a new one was on. I bet I had been to every Walmart in Alabama and some in Georgia and Florida. I couldn’t find that little duck anywhere. So I hit the internet. Luckily, I had one thing going for me to help me on my search. Normally, to avoid the headache of thinking up names for all of these toys, we will just look on the label stitched on to the toy and derive a name from that. Beanie Babies are easy because they name all of their stuffed animals, so we just use their names. Then, after we name it, we cut the label of so that he doesn’t chew it up. Well, we named this toy Munchkin. That’s what was on its label. So, I searched Munchkin and found that Munchkin was the manufacturer of baby products. I finally found it on their website and was surprised to see that it is actually a bath item and can be used as a wash cloth. I guess that’s why it survived so many washings. It’s called a Bath Critter.
I ordered one from eBay so I could use my PayPal account. After about a week it showed up in the mail box. It was wrapped in one of those real flexible tough plastic mailer envelopes. While I was at the mail box, I decided to mash on the wrapper to see if I could make it quack. It did. My next thought was "Boy, this is gonna be fun."
Jasper is a nosy little busy body, so I knew he was going to want to know what I had in my hands. Sure enough, when I came in he stood up on his back legs, stretching out to see what I had. So, I put it down on the floor to let him inspect it. He was curious, but boy you should have seen him when I mashed on the package and it started quacking. He went crazy. He grabbed that package and ran all over the house. Every now and then he would stop and look around to make sure that no one was close, then he’d drop it and start trying to tear in to it. Then, in frustration, he’d start shaking it wildly in his mouth.
Well, we were rolling on the floor. I ran to get the camcorder so I could capture this on film. By the time I got back into the living room, there was a pretty good trail of plastic envelop pieces. Linda was still laughing. I started filming. It took me a while to get him cornered enough so I could get a hold of it and help him get that little duck out. We finally did, and as expected, the toy is back on the top of his favorites list. He drags it around all over the house.
I’m going to have to buy a bunch of these little Bath Critter things. They may last long with a baby, but with Jasper they have about a four to five month life span. I’m glad we were able to find another one for him. That little duck really warms his heart. Besides, it’s good to hear the quack, quack, quack of a happy dog again.
John Currie
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