My errands this morning took me to the thrift stores in town, looking for stuffed animals for Savannah. Not only does she play with them, tossing them into the air and then chasing them when they land, she also carries these plush toys around with her all day long. From the kitchen to the breakfast room, from there to the TV room, she picks up these soft toys one by one and piles them up where she wants to take a nap.
Today's new toys included a green kangaroo, a red and white candy cane, a pink teddy bear, a pink pillow with a pig-face on it, and a tan teddy bear. All very soft and plush, without the button eyes or plastic eyes that Savannah could easily pull out and swallow. When I got home from town today, I cut all the labels and ribbons off of the toys and then put them in her toy basket when she wasn't looking. When she discovers them in there, it's like Puppy Christmas. She will put her nose into the toy basket to smell them all, then she'll pick one out (by color? by design?) and come and find me. Savannah will have her first-chosen plush toy in her mouth and she will either nudge my leg with it or drop it down at my feet. "Look what I found!" Not until I acknowledge her treasure does she take it and run back to the toy basket with it and try to pick up another treasure while still holding onto her first choice.
All of these plush toys are either fifty cents or a dollar, depending on which store they're from, much cheaper than the plush toys in those huge pet stores. Before buying them, I make sure the seams are tight and they have nothing that she can pull off and swallow (like eyes and noses and bow-ties) and I also smell them to make sure they're clean and fresh, not old and nasty. (And there are a lot of those in the toy boxes at the thrift stores.)
The ladies at the thrift stores know me, and when I put a batch of stuffed toys up on the counter, they know I've chosen them for Savannah, and I'm not buying them to re-sell in my own shop-space. As I type this, the red/white plush candy cane is underneath Savannah's chin as she sleeps on the wood floor of the breakfast room. Her blue monkey and the pink teddy bear are in her dog-bed, and the green kangaroo is on my husband's chair in the breakfast room... it either landed there when she tossed it, or she left it there as a gift for him.
Within a couple of weeks, depending on Savannah's teething needs as her adult teeth come in, these 'new' toys will either have a seam or two ripped apart (translation: into the trash they go) or they will be scrunched up and slimy with puppy-spit from much loving and tossing.
I've been reading Cesar Millan's book "Cesar's Way," which is all about the care and training of puppies and dogs. With all of our pets, I have constantly broken Cesar's Golden Rule: 'Dogs are dogs; they are not little children with four legs and fur.' Well. Guilty as charged. Never having had children, I have always treated all my pets as little kids... all of them over the years seemed to have been happy, healthy, and well-adjusted.
Exception (there's always one) to that was AngelBoy, my blue-eyed Birman. Inside of that magnificently beautiful cat was a blue-eyed person who loved me but also tortured me to my very soul with his questionable attitude and habits. We adopted AngelBoy as a tiny kitten and had to put him to sleep twelve years later. To this very day, those blue eyes of his haunt me and I can still feel him snuggling up underneath my neck at night. (AngelBoy either couldn't get close enough to me, or he was trying to suffocate me.... that mystery has never been solved.)
But... back to Savannah... she is a healthy, happy, well-mannered puppy who has been getting over her fears and whatever issues she brought with her from her first two homes before this one, her forever home. And when I hold Savannah's head in my hands and tell her that she is Momma's girl, she looks at me and just sighs and seems extremely content. I may indeed treat this puppy as if she's a child with four legs and fur, but she is taken care of very well and I cannot look at her as 'just a dog.'
Cesar Millan believes that American dogs are not as happy as they could be, for the simple reason that they're treated more like children than dogs. With all due respect to Cesar and his unique abilities to understand canine behavior, I don't know if I can agree with that. I will indeed finish reading his book, and I do admire that man for his comprehension of the psychology of dogs... but the proof of happiness is in the puppy. And Savannah is one happy puppy, living the dream... living the dream.
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