Buddies for a buddy
Some families have Elf on the Shelf. Here, we have Buddy.
Buddy can be any number of things, including a rainbow-colored stuffed starfish, a stuffed blue mouse, a leggy stuffed raccoon, a frisbee, the lid of a plastic container and, regrettably, my right slipper. Those are just the Buddies I can see from where I’m sitting at the moment.
Buddy is the name given to any one of the random items that Waylon the giant collie uses to amuse himself. The yard is littered with Buddies, but so is the inside of the house.
Waylon turned a year old a few weeks ago, marking the end of just the first half of his puppyhood. While he’s gained about 70 pounds, he’s also gained some measure of control over his mouth. No longer does he try to chew the legs off of chairs; finding that satisfying but ultimately futile, he’s turned his teeth to smaller, more vulnerable objects.
A daily soup bone would solve all of this, but we can’t bring them into the house because Waylon’s sidekick, Smoothie the sheltie, would want them, and his health won’t allow it.
My first foray into the chew toy world took me into an actual pet store. There, I found racks of every chewy thing imaginable. They kept the bully sticks in a bin at the back, where any respectable establishment would keep the dried bovine genitals. They are a healthy substitute for rawhide, and dogs love them, but at many dollars per, um, wiener – not to mention, the dogs devoured them in minutes – they were not really an option.
So I loaded up with stuffed bears and bunnies and such, paying almost $30 for four of them. Waylon jumped at the bag when I brought it home that afternoon. By nightfall, all four of the toys had been decapitated, amputated and otherwise shredded.
“Go get your Buddy,” I would say as I tossed a toy into the yard. Waylon would bound out after it, return with it in his mouth, and then proceed not to release it. He wanted to play tug, and he is good at it. I think Waylon is part crocodile.
Seeing the body parts strewn across the yard, I decided that chew toys would be a replenishable resource around here. We go through Buddies like we go through coffee.
My next shopping trip took me to the dollar store. How delighted I was to find racks and racks of chewy things – not just actual dog toys but other colorful, stuffed and plastic items. I filled my basket with Buddies: squeaky birds and farm animals, a plastic Santa, an elephant. I moved to the next aisle and broadened my definition of a chew toy: a paint roller, some plastic toothpaste holders, a silicone pot holder. Eight bucks got me a whole bagful.
The pet store toys are better, but for the destruction they encounter, the dollar store versions are as good. Just like you don’t have to buy wrapping paper at Saks Fifth Avenue, you don’t have to pay a lot for a Buddy.
There was be a bag of new Buddies under the tree on Christmas: a plastic bowl, a stuffed snake, a pair of child’s slippers. I went a little nuts at the dollar store. We’ve got enough to keep us busy over this long, strange holiday.
A hundred times a day I’ll toss one and say, “Go get Buddy,” and Waylon will take off after it. Around here, any old thing can be a Buddy.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com/.