(61) The KILL

Beeker is injured. This is his first injury in the two years since he's been in our family. Yesterday when I went out to do my walkabout, I of course, took Beeks out with me. As is his usual MO, he tore out to run around the house to get that first burst of energy out of his system before he investigates the yard and surrounding woods. However yesterday he returned quickly from the same direction he had gone. He was limping, and he was moving with complete concentration. At first I thought he had injured his left hip, as he had that exaggerated tender footing as he approached me. Of course I stopped what I was doing and we went inside. He willingly lay down and I felt along his legs and paws to see where he was most tender. His left front paw was warmer and he flinched when I touched the large pad but I couldn't see any cut, thorn or blood. As soon as I released his paw he started to lick it. Brad strongly encouraged me to leave it alone if I couldn't see any specific injury. He suggested that Beeks probably pulled a muscle or hurt one of his nails as he was running. He also said that Beeks would work it out or we would see a definite progression of the injury and then be able to do something for him. So, I reluctantly left him alone, allowing him to get up and walk back and forth between Brad and myself. He limped, putting only the tips of his toes down on the floor. I decided that he needed to take it easy and not run wild for a while so I returned to my walkabout without him. He stared out the front door with those sad eyes, just watching me and looking like a forgotten child. I'm happy to report that within the day he had worked out the strain to his paw and by last night he was walking as good as new. Notice this time there was no $100.00 emergency Vet visit to tell me that he had a sore paw,that would work it self out? I have a home monitor in Brad. Saved me $100 bucks!

Between the rain showers, I tortured Brad into going to a couple of garage sales with me. The feast de resistance was that we could take both dogs with us and they would get a little "outing". We didn't find the treasures that I was hoping to find but we were able to have fun together and we did find one sale that had among other things stuffed animals for 50 cents. Brad picked out a couple of them thinking that these would be a fun activity for the dogs.
Here let me restate that due to Beeker's approach to all toys, stuffed animals do not make any sense to buy. Even at garage sales. The mess he makes is unbelievable. He can disembowel a stuffed animal in two minutes flat. We have experimented with various types (don't even try the kind with the beans or other hard round stuffing)and have come to the conclusion that Beeks isn't interested in loving the cute little stuffed animals, he is interested in KILLING it in the shortest time possible.
We bought the cute purple monkey and white cat stuffed animals anyway. Max was so excited he couldn't stand it. If you have ever seen a Newfoundland with a stuffed animal or something soft in their mouth they are absolutely adorable. Max's tail went up and he was so happy to have something in his mouth. We gave him the purple monkey. I have shared before that Max's security blanket is anything in his mouth. He just calms down when he has something in his mouth. So this was a big hit to Max. Next we gave the white cat to Beeker. Beeks sniffed the cat a couple of times and then almost reluctantly took it from Brad's hand. We left for the drive home. We noticed that Beeker ignored the cat for a while, then quietly he started to lick it. Meanwhile, Max was standing in the back looking out with the purple monkey in his mouth as happy as a a kid with an ice cream cone. Then we heard it. A pop. When I realized what had happened, it was too late to do anything about it. Beeker had poped the eye off his cat and there was stuffing all over the back seat. More and more white stuffing was coming out of the cat. We were driving but I could reach around and was able to retrieve about three handfuls of white stuffing from the back seat. Beeker was hunkered down and Max had settled down in the way back to love his monkey. Within the next three minutes we were home. What we found was more than astonishing. It was a stuffed animal graveyard. Although Beeker had pulled a tremendous amount of stuffing from his white cat, he was only able to pull from the one eye that he had popped off. Therefore most all of the stuffing was still in the cat, it just had a lopsided head. Max on the other hand had loved his monkey so much that it no longer had a head or rather face and it was completely empty of stuffing. He had ripped it apart within the three minutes that it took for us to travel three blocks. Boy was he proud of his accomplishment too. He loved that monkey. (see picture at top)
Needless to say, we got a big laugh at being taught yet another lesson by our dogs. The truth still stands, it is not worth even 50 cents to buy a stuffed animal for my dogs. They will distroy it quicker than it would take to kill and disembowel a real animal.