Dogs in Toyland

So as I ponder about toys for our soon-to-be ankle biter, I am forced to realize that any toys we may get will have to pull double duty.  One will be the obvious time spent as a baby’s toy and well, the other… as a dog chew toy.

I realized just how much this was true when one of Shannon’s friends came over to spend the night with her four children in tow.  As with most children, they did not readily want to accept that our house is a house that does not currently cater to their “kind” and no amount of reasoning would get them to accept that no toys were needed to have fun in our home.  I mean, doesn’t everyone enjoy spending some good quality time reading a book, talking about the arduous day at work, and other mind stimulating activities? 

Obviously the answer was a resounding NO!  So being good future parents, we gave them some dog toys to play with.  After explaining the wonderful benefits of such things as rawhides, pig’s ears, and other tasty morsels the children’s teeth brushing habits will no longer be the same.  I doubt their Mother will be buying such devices as I got quite the scolding for giving them such things.

So with grooming devices nixed from the list of things to play with, I gave them the next best thing, dog toys. 

Our house is loaded down with a plethora of these toys such as the completely ‘un’stuffed fox,  lamb, and some other creature that only God would recognize since it is missing most of its hair, face, and other bodily protrusions.  These toys were taken too, well like a kid in a candy store and probably saw more action in that one day/night than they had in the previous years.

What is of interest is how eerily similar the children and dogs played with the same toy (sometimes played with together for more enjoyment).  For example, the ‘un’stuffed fox found itself in the deadly grips of two little ones who commenced to yanking and pulling and otherwise playing tug-a-war with the poor creature.  I thought somewhere in the Geneva Convention such torture, also known as the “rack”, had been banned and surely no one has used such a device since the Inquisition Days (so maybe they are reading but just not the right kinds of books).  It goes without saying that the fox gave up some good secrets during such torture but none of that information proved useful to the children who quickly abandoned it for other toys. 

This same technique is used by the dogs surely to gain valuable knowledge on where the other dog’s treats are hidden with the same likely effect.

Next up was the fetch ball which turned into a dangerous game of catch inside the house.  Several broken items later, we figured out that this was probably not the wisest of decisions and retired the 2011 Jones House Homerun Derby for good.

When all other sources of fun were dismissed, we introduced them to the exciting world known as the “backyard”.  The kids seemed to enjoy this and thankfully (lucky for us) the Texas heat zapped them of any unnecessary energy leaving the adults to return to sanity.