The Dog House Diaries :

Universal Soldier :

So, our first, and perfect German Shepherd, Chilli, had lots of toys.  A whole box full actually.  Some of them even dated back to when we first got her. 

Of course when she was young most of the plastic ones got completely decimated within about 15 minutes, and the furry ones all lost their squeak equally fast.  However, there were a couple of survivors.  

‘Noclop’s was one of the originals.  He started off being called ‘Cyclops’ as he had only one eye after about five minutes.  He went through life for quite a while as ‘Cyclops’, with my mother in law sewing his one remaining eyeball back on numerous times.  Then one day the eyeball vanished, and henceforth he was doomed to a life as ‘Noclops’.  To be fair, it was probably for the best that he didn’t see what was coming most of the time. 

Anyway, other than Noclops, all Chilli’s toys were pretty well looked after, and some even kept their squeaks.  She was such a good girl.  

But now, it is a new dawn and we have been ‘blessed’ with Barkley, who as you all know by now, is very naughty puppy.  

When we first got him, we went out and bought lots of toys, and duly named them all, just like we did with Chilli’s toys (Only other dog parents will understand that this is completely normal!  Ahem…) 

One by one, and sometimes two at a time, Barkley would literally rip these poor squishy creatures to shreds, as though he thought he was the King of the sodding jungle (but in our kitchen).  I tried rescuing a few of them, duly sewing up open wounds, and handing them back to him for him to kill and/or maim a few minutes later (seconds in some cases).  

Then it got really disturbing, as he seemed to develop an ear fetish.  We’d hand over a cute stuffed dinosaur / rabbit / duck…. and before you knew it, he’d be munching on an ear.  We then had to chase him around the bloody house with it for about half an hour so that it didn’t have to travel through his entire digestive system.  

After a while, we had quite a collection of ears, a couple of eyeballs, and extra unidentifiable limbs in a bowl.  So just like Dolph Lundgren who played the psycho in Universal Soldier and wore a necklace of severed ears, I thought it only right that I would make one for Barkley and make him wear it.  

Since then we’ve tried Tuff toys, which are still proving to be totally destructible, and we cut the ears off anything before handing it over.  He is not thrilled about this idea, and quite worryingly, Ive noticed him starting to lick my husband’s ears lately.  Im not entirely sure whether he thinks they just need a wash, or if he’s looking for another addition to his necklace. 

Sherry x

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