Things we do for love

We people do things for our fur kids, just so we know that they feel “the love”.  Today, I went to PetSmart and got the bulldogs new Kongs.  Oh how they love Kong toys.  Well these are gigundo King-size Kongs.  I also bought them some rawhide chips.  When I brought them home Rudy immediately saw that mommy had new toys and started to do the happy doggy dance all over the kitchen.  I let him have his Kong for a while so he could get it good and slobbery, and know that it WAS HIS!!!!  Then, like a meenie, I took it away…..to build the anticipation.  See, there is a method to my madness.  I was soaking two of the rawhide chips to be later stuffed inside the Kongs along with some food for hours of chewing (frustration) pleasure.  

Later, after the chips were softened enough to be all squishy, I mixed up some good doggy mush and stuff it down in the Kong and then stuffed in the rawhide, leaving just an teeny bit of the hide hanging out of the Kong.  I then packed as much of the remaining dog kibble into the Kong around the hide so that it was in there nice and snug and it would be real work to get it out.  You see, the object of this game is not only get the food, but time management and energy burning.  It’s not so badly needed with Rudy, the older dog, but with Harley, the pup, it is a definite MUST.  

These dogs are little guys who are souped up with the energy of  eleventy-seven hundrend watts of pure dog power!  Rudy is a 2 ½ yr old Boston Terrier.  He has mellowed a bit in his maturity…….unless or until that is…….you give him a ball.  Then he will run and jump and play until his tongue falls out and he trips over it and dies.  Now, Harley, on the other hand is only 7 months old.  He is Rudy’s son.  When he came into this world, we could see right away that he was going to be a handful.  He was the reason that the mamma dog had to have a c-section delivery.  He is a big goofy, one blue-eye-always on the go-curious puppy.  He jumps, runs, spins, hops, walks on two legs, leaps and loves to rolls the cat.  His favorite pastime is FOOD.  He needed some behavior modification and something to occupy his mind for a few hours a day in a bad way.  All the playing and running and sleeping just wasn’t enough.  He wants to be the alpha male in the house.  NOT.

So we shall see.  This is step one.