Irish Wolfhound puppies love to play around and rag soft toys. They are very amusing to watch, but it is exactly how they would treat their quarry.
One really kind friend kept buying me very expensive soft dogs toys, and although Misty was very good with them, and never ripped anything to pieces in her life, this excellent sensible behavior did not follow through for all of them.
As toys were left around, heads and limbs were ripped off, especially in the favorite game of tug of war. I cared not for this game, the mess it created with stuffing everywhere and the fact they had started to eat the stuffing like candy floss, I saw a problem in the making. I removed every toy, whole, headless, limbless and torn to shreds. I banned all soft toys. Problem resolved, or so I thought.
Months later, when the young juvenile delinquent had grown, into an even lager one, he appeared lethargic. I rested him, and watch him like a hawk, he wasn’t eating, he wasn’t pooing, he wasn’t well. He lacked energy and his bounce had gone.
Lifting him into the car we rushed to the vets, only to find a young newbie on duty. She could not find anything obvious, and wanted to send me home. I refused to leave, and “asked” that everything was thrown at him, from x-rays and scans to bloods. Under no circumstances was he to be left in the back pen to get better.
Two hours later a senior vet called me, to say that he had operated and removed a long fabric thing from the delinquents intestines … about 12 inches and sown up at one end from what he could tell. It was the tentacle off the late stuffed octopus he must have retrieved from some hiding place.
My vet informed me, we had been just in time, and how right I had been to jump up and down at my appointment. He also said that socks were the most popular items he removed, golf balls, and even a tennis ball.
£850 pounds lighter and an octopus tentacle, we all went home and lived happily ever after without any more soft stuffed dogs toys.