Saturday, January 14, 2017

Fluff and guts.

The big dog, Tralfaz, introduced us to the brutality of the canine world when he was a puppy, pulling the head off a stuffed pig and ripping out the fluffy guts inside.

The little dog, Nipper, has surpassed his brother in the category of proving that a toy labeled "indestructible" is just a toy that has not yet entered our house.

REE REE REE REE REE bomp bomp bomp
We spent some time and considerable money trying to find toys that Tralfaz would not reduce to garbage and particulate matter in minutes. I threatened to buy anvils. But there were some successes along the way. Toys designed to dispense treats usually got treated with the respect one might give an annoying maitre d' -- you could splatter him with one punch but you have to endure him to keep the delicious food coming in the future. Really hard plastic toys like the Unbreakoball survived. Toys that were no fun for him like the Goughnut survived too -- maybe he didn't like it because it was too tough, maybe it seemed too tough because he wouldn't play with it -- who knows?

Very few toys full of stuffing survived his first year. One that did was this red and green bone, stuffed to the point of firmness with enough white fluff to make a Santa suit. It didn't squeak -- Tralfaz might have roughed it up more if it did. However, it also seemed to be so tough that maybe this one really was dogproof.

Ha!

The horror!
What you see is a very small amount of the fiber fill that Nipper got out of that thing. It was all over the room. It was enough to stuff a pillow, crammed into a bone that could easily fit in a man's hand. Fortunately the little pup knows it's not food; he just wants to rip out the entrails for the pack, I guess.

Which brings me back to one of my hobby horses, to turn a toy-related phrase; the evil sickness of the Toy Story film series.

Buster, the family dog who pops up at the end of the first film and is shown to be friends with the toys in the second, would either have behaved toward his own toys as no other dog ever has, or he would have been committing horrific murder on a scale that would have made Andy's toys freak out. Worse, since we know Sid's toys didn't die despite the horrible surgeries performed on them, Buster's toys would not have even had the sweet release of death. Those people at Disney and Pixar are sick, I tell you, sick!

I try not to think of these things when the boys tear apart their playthings. Also, I try not to see how little fun they get out of the money I spent on them. But to be fair, Tralfaz has outgrown the toy annihilation phase, and I retain hope that Nipper will too.

Woody and Buzz would be relieved.

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