Week 156+

Buffaloo and I recently celebrated our third Buffiversary together.  This occurred in early June, just before I started blogging again, so you were all (sadly) excluded from our celebrations.  Obviously I have stopped really keeping track of weeks, as I did early on.  I did really like the idea of a weekly blog without interruption, but such is life.

It was a quiet affair.  A bowl of ice cream and a walk. We stopped at the local Petco Unleashed.  I let him pick out a toy (he selected a very durable piggy).  I love letting him pick out toys.  He gets excited, and will pick one up in his mouth (as opposed to what, I am not sure).  He'll then carry it around.  He also does this on occasion with toys he finds on the street/in the gutter.  It is often so cute I...let him keep them (I do wash them thoroughly first).

Toys Buffaloo found on the street.  It...seemed like a good idea to keep them.  Although as I write this it just sounds gross.  

When I first got him, he would make it a personal mission to destroy any toy that crossed his path, but he has mellowed with age.  Now he only actively destroys toys when they open up to him.  By which I mean when stuffing starts to show.  Rip Out Stuffing is one of his favorite games.  If you ever doubt that, look at my couch and remember...those are the good sides to the cushions.  At first, I thought, "Oh, I'll just get super durable toys." 

Any new or potential large dog owners beware:  a dedicated dog CAN and WILL destroy anything he/she/ze wants to.  After one or two such (expensive) purchases of stuffing dispensers, I gave up and only bought him stuffed toys that cost less than $2.  They don't last long, but nothing did.  And these didn't cost upwards of $20, so hey, I count it as a win.  And I could just shove the stuffing back in and the cycle would repeat.  Some sort of Dantean hell for stuffed animals.  

Then I got him Monkey.  Monkey was (well...is...sort of) a cheap stuffed toy.  Buff took him and...treated him gently.  He would carry him around gingerly in his jaws.  It was adorable.  Then Monkey showed stuffing.  I still have the empty husk of Monkey (I sometimes stick treats in him and let Buff dig them out).  

Buffaloo rummaging through his Toy Husk Graveyard.  Monkey is the brown one by his ear.

After that, I started getting nicer toys for him (in addition to the cheap ones).  The first one was Pink Elephant, a Kong animal.  He loved that toy, and it was tough enough to play roughly with.  But eventually he showed stuffing and met an end (although his husk may be around here somewhere...).  The most recent purchase, for our Buffiversary, was a Piggy.  "Ultra-Durable"...we shall see.  But so far so good.  

On our walk home, we stopped to talk to a neighbor we often run in to on our dog walks.  Her dog, Daisy, loves Buffaloo.  If she sees him, even across the street, she starts whimpering in excitement.  As we talked, I bent down and Buff snagged the Piggy, still in its packaging, right out of the bag and carried it all the way back home.  

There is little in the world as adorable as a proud Buffaloo trotting his new toys around.