Pooches: The Rat Problem

Several months ago, A and I went on a little road trip to Ikea to buy cabinets for the office.
When we were about to leave the kids section, we heard a husband yell to his wife, "who would buy these rats?!" The cheap little rats sounded like the perfect new friends for Mr. B. Thinking that they were about to be sold out, we quickly turned around and zigged and zagged with our cart through multiple families to get to the enormous bin full of rat stuffys. 

Though A has an issue with our numerous rats in the alley, she has no qualms about finding random rats laying around our home. Everyday, we will find one hanging out in a different part of our home telling where the pooches have been.

The only disgusting thing is that Miss M loves chewing and licking the rat tails, so if we step on rat tails the bottom of our sock or bare feet will be soaked in cold Miss M saliva.

Despite this fact, we know how much Mr. B loves his new friends, and endure the wet socks for his happiness.

Plus, they are the perfect friends for both Miss M and Mr. B, though sometimes they want to love them at the same time.

Also:

How Mr. B learned not to destroy stuffies

Just see how much he loves them.

Pretty toy clutter.

Sometimes this happens.

Pooches: On Stuffy Carcasses

When we first adopted Mr. B, he loved to tear up his stuffies and we had to live with random stuffy carcasses around the house. At first it was out of control. We would have random legs, heads and sometimes destuffed whole bodies strewn across our living room and bedroom.

Finding random stuffy parts dropped significantly when A taught Mr. B to be gentle with his friends.

During our training, sometimes Mr. B will go through spurts and he would start destuffing his stuffies. One issue we face is knowing when is it time to throw out the random parts of stuffy that we find around the house.

Several years ago I bought Mr. B a stuffed spider on a whim and it lasted only a few minutes. The bad thing was that the spider was a bit more than we typically spend.
Since it cost so much, we could not part with the body parts.
The good thing was that one stuffy became a set of 9 new stuffys: 8 legs and 1 body.

But after that we would randomly find stuffy spider legs in our bedroom. Much to my dismay, A decided to start throwing out the legs and after a number of years, she finally threw out the body. Just like Mr. B, I cannot imagine parting with any stuffys, but according to A there comes a time that we must all part with things, including Mr. B and his destuffed stuffys.

How do you know when it is time to part with a stuffy carcass?

Also:
How to teach your dog not to destuff stuffies
Stuffies on a walk.
Stuffy doctor.
Here is where they stay.

Mr. B's Security Stuffy

Mr. B is much like Linus from the Peanuts gang. On most days he will try to sneak by and bring one of his many stuffies on our daily walk.

Though they usually stay at home, every so often we will let him bring along one of his best friends.

 

Sometimes, he will even find a new best friend while on our walk, but A will never let him bring it into the house. 

Poor Mr. B, the lengths he go to to just bring a companion on the walk. As seen in the video, nearly every time we're set to go, he can't decide between his two favorite activities: going on a walk, or hanging with his stuffy:

Mr. B the tough dog

We always hear how Mr. B is such a solid dog and this is usually while someone is slapping and petting his side or behind. He is a perfect Bears fan and the way he looks pretty much epitomizes Chicago and Chicagoans: solid, weathered, resilient, tough and calloused. So it is pretty funny that his favorite toy right now is a big fuzzy red bone.

Our fantastic dog walker bought the red and a matching yellow fuzzy bone for the pooches as a Christmas gift, but really the fuzzy bones have become Mr. B's toys.

He carries them all around the house, when we leave for our walk, he will try to take his bone on the walk and when I take them down out back to potty, he will run out the door with the bone and I will have to chase after him to grab the bone.

It is funny that we have all these Nylabones and sometimes real bones laying around the house and though on rare occasions he will chew on one of them, he prefers to play with a large fuzzy bone. We have taught him to be gentle with his toys, so many of his fluffy toys have lasted several months and some over a year.

I guess he is like a true Chicagoan, though he looks all tough on the outside, he really is just a softy.

Mr. B's toy struggles

We make sure to supply the pooches with an ample supply of toys. Though most of the toys are shared, they each have their own toys. The only problem is that the toy Ms. M wants always happens to be the one Mr. B is chewing. Typically, Mr. B will be playing nicely with a toy and out of nowhere, Ms. M will show a lot of interest. First she will walk around, spying on the toy.

Then she will ever inch so closely

to the point that she will be sharing the toy with Mr. B.

Without any notice to Mr. B, the toy will mainly be in Ms. M's possession.

If Mr. B tries to keep some sort of ownership, Ms. M will use her monster paws to complete the take over. 

In the end, all Mr. B can do is look to us for some sympathy.

We usually try to dictate the rules and give the toy back to Mr. B, but the same thing will happen all over again. When we first adopted Mr. B, he would growl and guard his toys against Ms. M,  and Ms. M would have to rely on her cunning ways to get the toy. One time, Ms. M got a different toy, bit it to make it squeak and dropped it in front of Mr. B. As Mr. B went to check out the new toy, Ms. M moved around him and grabbed the toy she actually wanted. This was the first time that I realized that she was actually smarter than me. Now poor Mr. B doesn't guard his toys and Ms. M will just blatantly take the toys away from him.

Pooches: Stuffed Mr. B

Mr. B is very picky when it comes to his toys. His favorite toys are usually the fluffy ones that squeak. Unfortunately, he is a strong chewer and these toys usually do not last long.

However, we have used some techniques to stop him from completely destroying all of his fluffy toys. We rotate the toys, so he gets to play with each fluffy toy a little at a time. We try to buy toys that are touted to last longer, such as the Tuffys Pet Toys from VIP products.

A has even been able to train Mr. B to be gentle with his toys. Though he will jump at the toy, thrash it around and try to tear it apart, the moment A tells him gentle, he will stop chewing and will sometimes lick the toy. In the video you could see Mr. B's excitement over seeing all of his toys.

Pooches: Mr. B's Bone

Poor Mr. B, now that Wilma has joined the pack, he gets more of his toys taken away from him. It was bad enough that Ms. M would use her monster paws to grab a bone that he was chewing or a toy that he was playing with, but now Wilma will just come right up and grab the bone or toy away from him. We thought that our pooch hierarchy would have Ms. M at the top, Mr. B in the middle and Wilma at the bottom, but it turns out that Mr. B is still at the bottom. In addition to his mini me, his other favorite is this fuzzy bone. Just like his mini me, he wants to take his fuzzy bone on the walk with him. This all started when Wilma kept taking the fuzzy bone, whenever Mr. B wanted to play with it.
He was so insistent on taking his fuzzy bone with him, that we couldn't resist. We think it is to ensure that he is the first to play with it when we get back.
Since it was really hot out, he would randomly drop it during our walk, so we would pick it up and throw it all over the place. Mr. B would get so excited, that he would accidentally toss it in the air and hop around when he tried to grab it.
He would eventually calm down and pick up the fuzzy bone.
After awhile it was just too hot for him to carry and he chose panting over carrying his beloved toy.
So he decided to place the bone on his harness and carry it like a backpack,
away from the clutches of the evil step-pooch, Wilma.

Pooches: The Best Gifts Ever

I usually have a hard time choosing gifts for people. I want to get them something that can be put to good use, and not clutter up their homes. Recently we were the recipients of some great gift ideas perfect for dog people.
A friend of mine surprised us with these mugs with the pooches faces. Since we love brunches accompanied by: tea, hot chocolate, and soups, these were the perfect gift for us. She was just able to take the pictures from our website, and now we can have the pooches with us at all times. Here is Mr. B looking just like his photo. I guess he only has one "look":
We also had another friend who, as a wedding gift, made a donation to the dog rescue group in our name. We hadn't thought of this before, and we were so happy about the idea. Many gifts just sit around without being used, but this donation is perfect because it's helping save dogs.
Finally, we wanted to share these gifts from our dogwalker. She bought an array of gifts which were perfect for the pooches. Mr. B. loves fluffy toys and was quick to claim this fluffy yellow bone:
While Miss M. fancies herself a soccer player and loves this big ball. Look at her grip; I think she'd make a great goalie.
We were so happy with these great ideas from our friends. Does anyone else have any good ideas to pass along?