Dog Toys

Before we even brought him home, our dog, Willie, had a collection of toys we’d purchased in anticipation of his arrival.  He had a hedgehog – a plush, fist-sized toy with a squeaker inside.  He also had a realistic-looking fox (also with a squeaker), the sort of thing that, if you spotted it lying on the living room rug, might make you think the dog had dragged a bit of road kill into the house.

Willie also had a red rubber Kong ball which we filled with organic peanut butter and smoked chicken treats – compressed and flattened pellets roughly the size of jelly beans.  In addition to the things we purchased, we also received a gift bag with a pair of rubber squeak balls from Richard’s cousin Danielle.  “I don’t know how big his mouth is,” she wrote, “so I sort of guessed at the size.”

The night Julie came over to meet Willie she brought him a white teddy bear wearing a blue scarf and mittens.  He has subsequently acquired other plush squeak toys: a duck he carries around as if he were a bird dog; a blue dragon whose horns and fangs he has nibbled off, and a white bunny he stole from my mother’s bookcase on his first visit to her senior residence.

“Oh, Mom, I’m sorry,” I said as Willie paraded back and forth with his new bunny.  “It was on the bottom shelf where he could reach it.”

“That’s OK,” Mom said.  “He can have it.”  Willie promptly went to work removing the bunny’s black plastic eyes and fluffy tail.

At bedtime each night, Richard and I gather up all the toys and bones and chew sticks and place them with Willie in his crate.   And each morning, upon being released from the crate, Willie’s first order of business is to redistribute the toys in the living and dining rooms, the sunroom, and even in the office.  He does this with a great sense of purpose, returning to the kitchen again and again to ferry his toys, one by one, like a child emptying a toybox and placing his things where he wants them.  While walking to pick up the ringing telephone, I accidentally kicked the squeaking duck and sent it flying.  As Willie ran to retrieve the duck I said to Richard, “The way these toys are scattered everywhere you’d think we were raising a toddler.”

“We are,” said Richard.