This past weekend, I was in Jackson buying a dress for an upcoming wedding that I will be in and while in town decided to stop by Petsmart and check out the toy selection. Topaz's bone is still intact and she still has a large selection of balls that have yet to be killed so I decided to get her a Kong Wubba. This is her very first squeaky toy since most squeaky toys are stuffed animals which would mean that the squeaker would be removed within the first 5 minutes of play.
Upon, receiving the new toy she just assumed that it was a normal human toss, I retrieve and proceed to annihilate toy. After 30 minutes of play she finally discovered (with help) the squeaker part. The squeaking resulted in the toy being punished by her for squeaking. This usually takes place by her just pawing it a bunch and then grabbing it by the straps and flinging around a lot. However, the punishment usually results in more squeaking which results in more punishment and round and round we go until...finally she decides her punishment is not good enough and brings the toy to me for punishment.
This is how day one and day two with the new toy went. However, on day three she discovered the toy had another secret. Underneath the cover there is a tennis ball. She has spent ever moment that mommy has deemed her toy "awake" attempting to extract the tennis ball from the toy. After listening to the toy squeak for the better part of the past five hours, while she attempted to remove the now completely dead tennis ball from the toy, I have declared it the toys bedtime. This announcement was of course met by lots of sighs and grunts of complaint from Topaz, a sad puppy face laying on my knee as she looked pitifully at me for taking away her latest obsession and finally ended with a flop on the floor with another large sigh and a groan thrown in to ensure that I understood her displeasure.
This is not the first conversation that we have had pertaining to the toy. Usually, the conversation goes along the lines of her being instructed not to kill the toy. In response, whomever told her not to kill the toy is given a look as she continues to gnaw away the cover in hopes of extracting the tennis ball. She gets a few warnings and then if she continues to simply gnaw at the cover instead of playing with the toy, the toy is taken away.
The other conversation I have had with her about the toy occurred earlier this evening. She wanted me to go to bed with her so she would bring me the toy and make sure I had a strap and she had a strap. She would then proceed to pull on her strap in an attempt to lead me to bed. However, I was not ready to go to bed and never stayed in bed so she decided that my refusal to go to bed meant that I should then toss the ball. She brought me her toy and pushed it into my lap, then walk a few feet away from me, sat down with her ears perked. I just sat there looking at her waiting to see what she would do. I expected for her to give me a little bark to encourage me to throw the toy. Instead, I got a dog with perked up ears who proceed then proceed to wiggle her butt around on the floor several to emphasis the fact that it was in fact touching the floor. She has been taught that she has to sit to have her toy thrown for her ( a rule that is enforced 90% of the time). Since her butt was indeed on the floor and it was something we do sometimes have to reinforce, I went ahead and gave the toy a toss and got stuck playing a game of toss and retrieve for quite sometime.
Oh well, I would rather play the game despite my soreness and tiredness and enforce her training and let her get some energy out. Plus, all this playing has result in a finally worn out puppy that is ready to curl up with me. This is mainly because she has finally lost the high she had from spending the last 5 hours attempting to get that tennis ball.
No comments:
Post a Comment