Greta has found an indestructible toy: Gumby! She works and works on him, but she can’t manage to tear a leg off despite her best efforts. Her interest in Gumby has remained high, possibly because she can’t figure out why she can’t rip him in half. She drags Gumby into her crate, her bath, the yard, and takes turns chewing on him between mouthfuls of her orthopedic pet bed. She holds different limbs down with her paw, takes his torso in her jaw, and whips her head back and forth.
The result? Gumby usually ends up far-flung on top of a piece of furniture across the room. I can almost see the wheels turning in Greta’s head: “I can render suede, leather, and bone, why can’t I pop this guy’s head off!” Other than dents that seem to self-heal, Gumby is unscathed after each Greta attack. We love Gumby: he is dog-safe and Dobie-approved.
Second week into our search for perfect toys for Greta, and I notice her Duckworth Splash plushie in the yard. Toys in the yard only end up in the yard because Greta loves them. She drags her favorite toys out there to toss around to herself. We thought at some point she would learn to play fetch with us but the only game she really likes is “keep away” and it never lasts for long because if she has something she wants to keep away from us, we never manage to get it. Greta quickly grows bored of winning. “Fetch” is what we do after Greta is finished playing with a toy and one of us has to go and get it and bring it inside. I guess we didn’t “fetch” Duckworth when we should have and now Duckworth has to stay outside because the nappy hair hasn’t come clean even after several rounds through the washer.
So, Duckworth may be a perfect toy after all. We have noticed Greta loves the feel of matted fur in her mouth. She chews on Duckworth but she never rips him up. She just tosses him in the air until she gets bored and leaves him outside until next time. Perfect.
Greta is bored. We are running her every evening, giving her play time outside with a ball every afternoon, and giving her plenty of chews in between, but she is going through some sort of energy spurt. She has returned to her digging habit, has shredded her orthopedic bed, pooping out rolls of foam every morning, and has torn apart most of her toys. She used to sleep with a Skineez toy, but recently ripped it’s head off and we suspect she ate the squeaker as well. So, we are experimenting. Max, her fave PetMeds stuffie, made it longer than most of her other toys. But, Greta stayed busy and eventually made six stuffies out of one. Right now Max is occupying five rooms. His leg is on the ottoman in the living room, his head has been pushed under the bed, parts of his torso are in the kitchen and bathroom and he has at least one arm lying around somewhere in the backyard. She hides another leg in one of our laundry baskets, among clean and folded clothes of course, and she sleeps with his other arm tucked into her half-shredded mattress in her half-eaten bed. I watch her tossing his body parts around and I wonder, what will Greta shred next?
It’s day 27 of the squirrel war in our backyard. Greta is still losing, but Charlie the cat has had some wins. We have seen remnants from her favorite corner on the porch. Do most cat owners have to bleach a section of their home after sweeping up leftover innards their little darlings have left? I wouldn’t bother so much; except her corner is right next to the front door and the mailman won’t come to the front door if the flies have gotten to the fresh meat before I have. I am often asked if our cat is friendly. I guess that all depends on who is asking.
We are getting more creative about how to help Greta work out her endless energy. She likes her bike rides but she really loves low tide under the bridge. There aren’t many places with stretches long enough for her to reach her top speed, but this is one of them. All sorts of sea creatures are stranded on the sand at low tide and she has sampled every single one of them. They inevitably bite, pinch, sting, or half choke her as she tries to swallow them whole. She yelps but always goes back for more. Then she drinks enough sea water to throw up at least once within the next few hours. What can I say? She may not have been the brightest pup in her litter, but she was probably the most adventurous.
Despite the similarities in this picture, Greta could not be more different than her best friend, Raven. Raven is prissy. She doesn’t like to get wet, prances when she runs, and has preferences on everything from food to bedding. Greta can be found soaking wet, tongue lolling, sprawled out on any surface that might help her keep cool. If Raven is a princess, Greta is a peasant. She isn’t particular about eating, wolfing down her food in three or four bites, and she usually transports half her water bowl about ten feet before opening her mouth and drooling it in a huge puddle on the floor. She is messy. She also might be a bit of a dummy. She has to relearn Raven’s doggy door every time we visit and always smacks into their sliding glass door, often at full tilt, at least twice in a weekend.
Our friends, whose baby is Raven, have thought about getting another Dobie. Having Greta visit has given them pause. Her rough and tumble behavior is quite opposite of the quiet presence that is Raven. For us, Greta fits right in with our kids. My oldest son has enough willful difficulty for three kids. Could I handle another high-strung dependent? Just like our friends we have been given pause about getting another canine companion. Because dogs are like kids in personality, you never know what you’re gonna get.
What happens when a road trip lands two kids and a puppy in the back seat of a small SUV? Questions like:
“Can you tell Greta to stop licking my face?”
“Is Adam supposed to be touching Greta where she poops?”
“Mom! Can you move Greta’s rump out of my face?”
In other words, enough chaos to relocate our Dobie to the third row of the car on the trip home. Poor Greta just wanted to look out the window and our two kids were just collateral damage. One rest stop, two bones, and three hours later we were to our destination, but not without a car full of dog hair, slobber all over our boys’ heads, and a few barks that made my husband swerve toward the nearest exit.
Greta has been spayed, but Greta has a baby. It’s the size and shape of a football and it squeaks. Annoyingly. All the time. The day after she came home from being spayed, she picked up this football, claimed it as her own and sleeps with it every night. At first she slept with it on her belly, like she was trying to replace what had been taken from her. Now she sleeps with it under her neck, or under a paw. It’s a bit eerie how protective she is of her “baby.” She whines until we give it to her and won’t sleep in her crate without it. She squeaks it in her mouth and then mimics the sound over and over with her own voice, like she is crying out on behalf of the baby she will never have. She gets quite worked up as the sound of the squeaker seems to rile her more and more. I have had six dogs and never had one that made me think twice about spaying, until Greta. I can’t help but wonder, does she know something is missing, or is her behavior just coincidence?
I am missing a gold earring. “So, what?” you might ask. Well, it was an anniversary present and I am hoping I find it before it is missed. Greta, my dog, and Adam, my son, consume a variety of non-food items when I am not looking. When my wedding ring went missing a year ago I spent a lot of time in the backyard mashing through dog poop and dirty diapers with a plastic fork just in case, only to find the ring in a hoodie pocket a month later. So, I am standing here with a plastic fork again. This time I am heavily weighing sentimental value against the gross factor. She is technically a puppy, but when her poop is larger than my fist can it truly be called puppy poop? Is a visual representation of love this important? I don’t know.
I still fall off my own bike, something I should probably find shame in instead of sharing, but the truth is I can barely get myself from point A to point B. So, first we added a seat to the front of my husband’s bike (between the handle bars and his bike seat) and later added a second seat to the back. So, Anthony’s bike has three seats, which is rather comical. But when we tie a sixty-pound Doberman to his contraption, things look rather hysterical. It’s a good workout for Greta and my husband and we end up entertaining a lot of onlookers. Anyone passing by with a phone camera snaps a picture of my husband and his entourage and, if they are lucky, and I am paying more attention to their gawking than my riding, they usually end up with a picture of me half-on the curb and half-off my bike, completing the three-ring circus act we like to perform on Saturday mornings for the neighborhood.
Coquina rescued her precious Doberman puppy Greta from squalor on a South Florida farm at the tender age of 8 weeks. Since then she's been balancing being a work-at-home mom with raising two young sons, a dog, and a cat. This is their story.
