Thank you for finding That Old House amidst the chaos of the Internet. We are delighted that you are here.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Let Me Pick Your Brains . . . . Canine Style


If you don't care much for dogs,
you can skip today's post.  
Not that you need my permission to do that


Because it is about this guy,
our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel,
Dylan DiPoochy.


 And these guys,
Dylan's beloved Alligator-Dinosaur-Dragons
We are not entirely sure which species these little stuffed toys represent.
Hence, the hyphenated names.

Since adopting Dylan during Hurricane Sandy last October,
our house has slowly filled with stuffed dog toys.
Dylan piles them up on sofas, and lies down on top of them.
He takes them for walkies in the yard, sometimes forgetting one
and rescuing it, dirty and bedraggled, hours later.

The only things he'd rather snuggle with than his toys
are his people and, sometimes, Gilda The Red, his Cavalier companion.

Luckily for Gilda and for us, he doesn't chew us open and pull out our stuffing.

Most of the time, when you find Dylan, you also find at least one.
Two.  Three.  More of his stuffed toys.


Some of Dylan's stuffed toys are quality items.
They have survived pretty much intact.  Most of those still have their guts.

But the little Alligator-Dinosaur-Dragons
are in the 2 for $5 bucket at the PetCo checkout counter.
  

Not really your quality items.


But Dylan loves them.
And we have managed to keep him from dining
on the white fluff he pulls out; thank goodness he's more interested
in the eviscerating than in the ingesting part of this process.

Which proves what those of us who shop for bargains,
and haunt thrift shops and secondhand emporiums,
are probably born knowing:
You can't judge the value of something by what you pay for it.

It's a rare picture of our Dylan that doesn't include at least
a glimpse of one of these little green toys.


So one may not have its snout, another may not have the top of its head,
and the new one will be similarly customized by our ferocious pooch . . . 
but they do look well loved, don't they?

By the way, during the photo shoot for these three toys, above, 
there was a quite frantic little dog bouncing up and down, up and down, 
at the side of my desk, worried that his little pals had disappeared forever.  

He got them back.
And so far, New Guy has not had a lobotomy.

May all of us find bargains that we cherish, 
and that amuse and comfort us!  -- Cass

Gilda thinks there was far too much talk about Dylan today.

12 comments:

  1. Cass, my Border Collie does the same thing. There is not one stuffed animal that is whole. He is a rescued dog also. If we go out to the garden he drags one with him and runs around with it in his mouth. They are all over the house. I have a big basket for them and he will go in and pick out a special one for that day. I sew them up and wash them and then he drags them around the yard.
    Do think it's because of being rescued and that it is a security item?
    Love your doggies.... they are so pretty.
    Have a great weekend.
    Mary

    ReplyDelete
  2. My two dogs aren't toy dogs!!! Give Dolly (the corgi) a toy and she immediately takes it outside and dumps it (our yard is littered with wet, dirty toys -- sigh!) Doogie (the stray) doesn't think much of them either. He'd rather have a bone or a rawhide bone or a green-ie! I'm not sure which dog is strange (yours who tears them up or mine who could care less! (and Ollie didn't like toys either - so that may be a corgi trait!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have two of the. cutest. dogs. Their individual photos look like portraits of royalty. I enjoyed reading about Dylan's toys. He sure does enjoy them. ;) Pamela

    ReplyDelete
  4. Both of your pups are so cute and they have the funniest personalities. My dogs are rawhide bone lovers. I tried stuffed toys and they tore them into smithereens immediately. My daughter just got a Boston terrier and of course she paid more for toys than she did the dog. She was telling me today that she cleans up and fills his basket with his toys and he methodically brings them out one by one to the living room floor.

    I was at Petco with her last week and I some some pricier little toys made of some heavy duty cloth they are supposed to withstand a hurricane. Not sure if my dogs would like them at this point.

    XO,
    Jane

    ReplyDelete
  5. My Sadie loves stuffed toys too. Unfortunately I had to quit giving them to her when she started eating the stuffing!!! So now she gets balls. She has all colors and several different sizes of balls. Each day she picks her favorite ball for the day. If it is red ball day and you try to get her to play with her blue ball....no way!

    Your dogs are so cute I love hearing about them!!

    Michele

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dylan is just too darn cute - and I'm afraid Gilda thinks that too!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Many years ago, my second Golden Retriever, Ginger, had tons of toys, she would sleep with them, carry them around, spread them through out the house, never chewed on apart. I had ten gallon crocks full of them. Sadly she died early from Lyme Disease, and Golden Retriever #3, Maggie came into our life. She has chewed and shredded every single Ginger Toy, and many more that followed. If it has a squeaky in it, she needs to remove it. As she has gotten older, it's not such a "I must kill it" thing now...but she definitely has her favorites, and will bring them to whoever walks in the door. My girls use to tell me I'm spoiling the dogs, could they be jealous? lol! I love seeing pictures of Dylan and Gilda, so sweet!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. What a sweet way to start my day, Cass! Our Daniel was a toy shredder. I could count on him having new a stuffed squeekie toy de-squeeked at lightning speed, and de-stuffed shortly thereafter. Walmart used to carry long-legged stuffed toys with FOUR squeekers in them. Hard to buy more happiness for a dog for $5, I tell ya. I have one of his torn up toys from years ago that I couldn't bear to throw out. Came home to a pile of fluff, a punctured squeeker, and the pelt was completely inside out. Sure wish I could have watched him accomplish THAT.

    Ruby is a collector, and she scatters her collection of toys all over the house. We put them back in the basket in the entry, and she takes them out one by one. We find her most favorite toys in the back of her crate. She chews on them a little bit, but has not yet opened one up to take out its guts.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Adorable. Dylan gets to nap ON TOP of the back cushions! Oh my, you are a very lenient Mama!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting That Old House; it's always exciting to find new comments -- they are treasured! Because of increasing spam, I have reluctantly eliminated "Anonymous" commenting. Legitimate anonymous commenters, please forgive me! You might try using "Open ID" instead. Blogger's spam software worked for a good long time, but, sadly, no longer.