Episode 5 – Longdog

"Long Dog"

I loved my toys. My favourite game was fetch. My mum and dad used to buy me loads of toys, I was really lucky to be part of this family they loved me so unconditionally. I was quite a small dog (7Kg max) my mouth was only tiny and large toys such as tennis balls were far too big for me. This didn’t stop me having a go from time to time, but my jaws ached after a while. The toys I really liked were smaller soft toys filled with the sort of fluffy stuff you would find inside a teddy bear.

One such toy was just under one foot long, sausage shaped and had a cuddly dog’s face at one end and a small tail on the other. It was just the right diameter for my mouth and the fact that it was soft made it easy to carry. Aunty L called this toy “Long Dog”. I loved it, or rather should I say them as I had loads of them because after a while, the stitching would split, and all the filling used to come out. Don’t tell mum or dad but I may have helped this filling come out quite a lot of the time!

That's me with Long Dog

The best game with Long Dog was fetch. Mum or dad would throw this for me to chase and return to them. I was good at this, so I say so myself, and sometimes I could get this back to them before they had even reset after throwing this for me the previous time. After playing with longdog for a little while, I would find a spot on the carpet and lie down and give it a chew, and chew, and chew……. then the best thing happened, inside Long Dog was a squeaky! If I got the angle right, I could get longdog to squeak 20 times in rapid succession. Mum and dad thought this was cute at first but a high-pitched squeak which was louder than the T.V. sound could only be cute for so long. 

Thankfully, my front teeth were quite sharp and eventually I would accidentally pierce the squeaky and it would fall silent. The next best game with Long Dog, especially after the squeaky had gone and the filling had all ‘fallen’ out (Shh - don’t tell anyone I did this!) I would play tug of war with dad. I got a good grip at one end of Long Dog, and dad held the other. We would pull on each end to see who the winner was. If I started to lose grip, I would cheat and stop pulling until I had rearranged Long Dog in my mouth so that dad couldn’t take this off me. We had so much fun, I made a happy growling sound every time I tugged on Long Dog. I know that dad used to leave go every now and again just so that I would win: he was kind like that, and I used to grab it all in my mouth and back I came for more with a short sharp Grufff! to get dad’s attention. Those were some of the best days of my life and miss dad’s company terribly. I know he misses mine too.

I mentioned that we had more than one Long Dog, this was because without filling or squeaky they would soon disintegrate into a soggy mess of material and fluff. Thankfully the local pet shop, dad called it “Pets are expensive” had plenty and a new one was always purchased shortly after.

Nothing like a quick game with dad

That’s all for now, time to play with my new Long Dog and see who I can annoy with the squeak! I’ll speak to you next time. 

TTFN

Mazie


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