news-record.com

Greta has a new favorite toy: a pink ball. It's her new Rufus.

Rufus was her very favorite toy way back when. Before Cassie, before her world was turned upside down. Rufus was just a Food Lion toy that I picked up to replace Reggie, a stuffed toy that Margaret, fellow Pet Shop blogger, had bought Greta when we first adopted her. Greta loved Reggie so much that he just fell apart. So we needed a good replacement toy. I picked up this toy at Food Lion and Greta loved it so much. She played with it all the time, chewing it, playing fetch with it, she knew it by name. (My husband named it Rufus). But she never destroyed Rufus.

Eventually Rufus started to fall apart on his own and luckily Food Lion still carried the same toy, so I bought a replacement Rufus. She didn't seem to notice the difference and went on playing the same as usual. I took a series of pictures called "Ode to Rufus" of her playing with Rufus in the grass one day. 

But then Cassie came along, and Cassie would fight Greta for Rufus. We didn't stick up for Greta and Rufus, unfortunately. And he didn't survive the battles. Food Lion didn't carry the toy anymore either. Since that day, Greta hasn't had a favorite toy.

But she's torn through quite a few. Infamously, she beheaded a childhood toy of mine. A stuffed witch. Greta tore into my box of Halloween decorations, and didn't touch a single item except that witch.

I had great intentions of teaching my bordie collie to catch a frisbee. Greta and Cassie had other ideas.

Last Christmas, Margaret gave both my dogs stuffed reindeers, Greta's didn't last very long. 

But a couple weeks ago, we found a pink ball under our couch. It wasn't ours. We think it belonged to Sophie, the dog we watched awhile back. I threw it in the middle of the floor to see which dog liked it, and Greta immediately took to it. And amazingly enough, she wasn't able to destroy it.

I've been keeping it in the house only, because we've found that the backyard is like a graveyard for toys. But when she comes inside, she immediately wants it and she licks it and chews on it and curls up with it and protects it from Cassie. When she goes outside to use the bathroom, she holds it in her mouth. And last night, she cuddled up on her dog bed and fell asleep with it by her side. It was the cutest thing.

I think we've found her new Rufus.