Now, in general, Clover is not a chewer. Aside from one incident with a corner of a baby doll cradle he was sleeping in as a puppy (this was his choice, by the way, not mine), he never really chewed much of anything. Some dogs are delighted to hunker down with a good nylabone, a hunk of slightly bacon flavored plastic, or a sterilized, hollowed-out cow bone. Heck, I know a dog who tore the handle off the fridge once. But not my fuzzy.
As you might have guessed by the knee injuries, he's a runner. Agility trials? Check. Top speed after a squeaky ball? Check. Even better, screaming after a pack of squirrels (seriously, this happened, there were like 14 of them, I swear his eyes went wide and he quivered for a moment before the charge) - check.
Hanging out in an expen, or on my sofa, or anything that does not require constant motion? Major uncheck my friends.
So what does one do to entertain a dog who likes to play the consummate Havanese game, "RUNLIKEHELL", but is physically unable?
Spend a lot of money on junkie rawhidey things in massive efforts of desperate bribery.
Yes, ladies and gentleman, if I were a human parent, my children would spend at least some (though I hope small) part of their childhood planted in front of the TV (though I hope educational programming) because I was at the end of the rope, no longer able to entertain or deflect them AND retain my sanity.
So Clover gets chicken-wrapped raw hides, bones that still have tendons smoked on them (ew), and Kong toys stuffed with peanut butter - or lately, my most recent failure of trying to find a reasonable non-dairy cream cheese. Not too many, of course, because getting fat would put unnecessary stress on his knee joint.
But dear god, I'm glad I can get him to chew on SOMETHING. Because at the end of the day, no one wins if one's caretaker goes certifiable.
You actually know a dog who tore a handle off a fridge twice, and ate a "dorm" fridge that the beer is kept in.
ReplyDeleteI say you put a Rubik's cube in there and let him have at it.