So…my dog is weird, and not just in the standard ‘it is a different animal and therefore exhibits different traits than humans’ way. Usually, and notably of late, he destroys anything he gets into his mouth. Chewed up, it is. Most times these are acceptable items that I’ve purchased for him — rawhide bones, real bones, dog food, chew toys, rope toys, hunks of firewood, etc. It has been a few things that he should not have touched too: elk sausage (almost died that night, he did), extension cords, decks, cedar fencing, shrubs, Portana’s sunglasses, and the odd bowl. I’m not sure why more things lately — likely some sort of growing phase or frustration with the amount of exercise he gets. I do try to get him out for a daily game of frisbee or a long walk…but sometimes life doesn’t play nice. It is amazing the speed and voracity with which they are chewed up - I found only dime sized chunks of the frames and the lenses from the sunglasses. I would have had no idea what it was if the lenses were not there. And yes, I DO feed him. Little bastard is just a warm fuzzy poo factory. Ok, he is a great buddy too, but that is it!
So…anyways.. the real impetus of this story is a little yellow stuffed chick that has an electronic peeper that squeaks when you poke at it. I got it from Mom during college as an Easter present and it was found during my long awaited cleaning out of boxes and bins from the office. It was cute and fuzzy, but long since served its purpose. I was just going to dump it into another bin for permanent storage, but Portana figured we should let the dog play with it — good idea 
I honestly figured that he’d just shred it in 10 minutes or so — like the hedgehog ($8.99 at Petsmart, bastages) he ripped up a few weeks ago, but the strangest thing happened: it is still alive after 4 days! Bogart used to have several stuffed toys as a pup, so perhaps he missed those “companions” and is again adopting a stuffed piece of fabric as his buddy. He had a long tube shaped dog, a frog, a safari monkey, and the aforementioned hedgehog. All of them except the last one lasted for several months — they were hillarious with his walking around and constantly squeaking them. Thank Pete for Tivo though, or there would have been some hiding of that toy so I could actually hear the TV.
So…the chick. This thing is now a disgusting shade of yellow-and-dog spit and is never more than 5 feet away from him. He runs around with it, makes it squeak, tosses it up the air, tackles it and starts all over again. Sometimes he will just carry it into my office and lay there triggering the squeaker. Precious. I’m curious to see how long it will last, perhaps I get to spoil him with fuzzy animal toys again.
P.S He is laying here in the middle of the floor rolling around on his back for no apparent reason. Perhaps an itch he cant scratch or some other primal urge to flop around and look cute.
– Update – It was noted to me that he also has destroyed some very expensive wood & fabric lawn chairs, Murphy’s pet carrier, cardboard boxes (the LARGE ones), his own damned bed and some newspaper. I’m sure I’m still missing a few….fuggin’ garbagegut.