January 11, 2011

White Dog followed me into the bedroom and hopped up on the bed. Together we surveyed the toy box and I explained that things were getting more than a little out of hand. Today we were going to sort through the toys. WD looked at me quizzically. The Other White Dog walked past us to use the dog door. I stopped him and explained that today we were culling the toys: choosing items to be cleaned and donated to Water Melon Mountain Rescue, those that were loved beyond saving (like very old bones and chews), and those that we would keep in the toy box. TOWD, not a toy player, shrugged and continued on his way outside. Nuka came into the room and got comfortable in the sun puddle near us. Puff watched from the doorway.

"So," I said, holding up aardvark, "keep?" White Dog took the stuffie from my hand and put it on the bed. Chimp got no response so I put him on the donate pile and reached for the next choice. As I held up Green Snake, Puff grabbed Chimp off the pile of one donate-able and ran with it outside. She came back in without it in time to take no fins or tail or snout Fish which was to go to toy heaven and rescue him to her stash outside. White Dog voted by taking her top 100 favorites and piling them on the bed where she then laid on them. She and SAWD alternated grabbing the toy under consideration. Nuka, who also does not play with toys, wanted to be part of the fun so AWD climbed in the toy box and laid on top of the remaining toys barking excitedly and refusing to yield any of her "eggs."

At the end of a half hour there were exactly three toys on the donate pile: a tuggy rope (which I had my foot on), The rubber chicken (whose cluck when grabbed scared all of the helpers), and one of those treat-filled cubes that you roll to release a "prize" (it was empty of treats). The discard pile looked like a gruesome graveyard scene with its pile of old partially chewed bones, rawhide pieces and a part of a moo ear. Even Quinn got involved at this point as he came in from his position of watching on the deck to happily nosh on the ancient ear.

"Thank you, White Ones, but you are NOT helping," I pointed out. Perhaps this task would be best accomplished alone, when Steve had all the pups out for a walk. Until then, I surrendered any notion of finishing this task, and gave myself over to playing with the pups. Later, Steve went into the bedroom and asked, "How come the toys are all out of the box?" And the White Dogs snickered in unison.