Unstuffed Skunk Border Collie Toy

No rant today, I'm ranted out for now...

Walking through the minefield back to the bouncy chair, I noticed the floor.

There were little piles of white fluff everywhere. 

Looking down at my stocking feet, past the coffee mug, the culprit was spotted.   A Bored Border Collie.

Usually when I find fluff, I pick it up, and toss it into the trash bin.  The house has fur in the corners, dog foot prints on the "Show Everything" beige tile floors, and to add insult to injury the Parrot has a habit of eating "al fresco".   I could run the vacuum twice a day and never quite get all the mess up. 

The fluff tells me that I have to get out needle and thread and sew the seams back up.  I have a dog that loves her Frankenstein scarred toys.   She's one of those dogs that likes soft toys.  She will grab a leg or a tail and shake the thing around not caring that she'll brain herself.  It is probably best that way.  I have given her soft toys since she gave up on the Tennis Balls that I gather from around the courts at Hagen Park.  There's a bucket of those on the front porch that are waiting for Baby Girl The Friendly Pit Bull across the street or any other deserving dog that may need them.  

A Helpful Hint... if you have a tennis ball that needs to be cleaned off try the dishwasher or toss it in with the laundry.   If you do put it in the laundry, your clothes will be naturally softened and the tennis ball will come out fresh and ready for a new coat of slobber and floor grunge.

A Second Helpful Hint... Now that you have cleaned the tennis ball off in the washer, grab a knife and make an incision in it.  Make the incision slightly longer than a piece of your dog's favorite food.  For my Lettie, I usually try for something slightly wider than my thumb.   The result is now you have a place to put the dog food in that bounces.  I've fed Lettie that way when I want her to be preoccupied with something while I make my own dinner.

But back to that unstuffed toy.   The skunk has been around for a while, taken a couple trips through the washer and has been refilled with other stuffing.  It is scarred and ripped... I think this time it won't survive the trip.  Friends here, knowing that I have One Of Those Soft Toy Dogs will give me little plush things to give her.   I toss them in with my weekly laundry and then give the toys to her.  They briefly become her favourite thing, but she keeps returning to the same few toys.   That blasted semi-shredded skunk.

We call it "Road Kill" the skunk.  When it was fully stuffed, she'd had a habit of leaving it on its back with the legs sticking up in the air. The first time I walked in the house after we gave it to her, it sat, upside down in the middle of the beige floor with beady eyes staring back at me pleading mutely in my mind to save it from being chewed.  It was that time when Lettie bounded over to the door, grabbing the skunk in her path and making the electronics squeak at me.   Who knew Skunks could make noise?  I sure didn't!

Now with half the stuffing left, it is sitting in the hallway bent at an odd angle, fur all spiked with dog slobber and looking sad.   It won't survive another voyage to Lake Bosch.  It lost the electronics a while ago when they became a rattle then the pieces fell out in a short bit of flapping about one day.   I'm still finding white pieces of plastic in strange places.  I never was all that effective at using the vacuum either but with a dog, I can cover.

Or so I tell myself.

Her favorite toy was a grey squirrel.  She had that one for more than a year grabbing it by the tail and flapping it around dizzily.  After she savaged it, she'd place it carefully next to her mat and curl up into a dog ball.   Odd way to treat your toys, one moment it was to be shredded like an outside squirrel, the next your baby, but that is Dog Logic (TM).  Her sleep mat in the master bedroom has a ring of dog toys around it so she can keep an eye on them as if they were the puppies she never had.   I guess the ol' girl is feeling broody.

On the next trip to the kitchen, for the next mug of coffee, I pick up the next pile of fluff.   I stuffed it back into the skunk hoping it would stay there for a while giving the thing a little more life, but no... it popped back out.  It will go into the bin and Mrs Dog will have one less toy for a while.  

Not to worry, there's a box in the hall closet marked "Dog" in sharp black lettering with future furry treasures for her to shred.   If only I could get her to stop coveting my plush duck decoy...